"Half an hour's walk for a young man,
By lanes and fields and stiles;
But you the footpath do not know;
And if along the road you go,

Why then 'tis three good miles."

The soldier took his knapsack off,
For he was hot and dry;

And out his bread and cheese he took,
And he sat down beside the brook,
To dine in company.

"Old friend! in faith," the soldier says,
"I envy you almost;

My shoulders have been sorely prest;
And I should like to sit and rest
My back against that post."

The old man laugh'd and moved:
It were a great arm-chair!

Still, it may help a man at need;
And yet it was a cursed deed

That ever brought it there!

"I wish

"There's a poor girl lies buried here,
Beneath this very place;

The earth upon her corpse is prest;
This post was driven into her breast,
And a stone is on her face."

The soldier had but just leant back,
And now he half rose up;
"There's sure no harm in dining here,
My friend? and yet, to be sincere,
I should not like to sup."

"God rest her! she is still enough
Who sleeps beneath my feet!
The old man cried: "No harm, I trow,
She ever did herself, though now
She lies where four roads meet.

"I have pass'd by about that hour
When men are not most brave;
It did not make my courage fail;
And I have heard the nightingale
Sing sweetly on her grave.

"I have pass'd by about that hour
When ghosts their freedom have;
But here I saw no ghastly sight;
And quietly the glow-worm's light
Was shining on her grave.

"There's one who like a Christian lies
Beneath the church-tree's shade;
I'd rather go a long mile round,
Than pass at evening through the ground
Wherein that man is laid.

"A decent burial that man had;
The bell was heard to toll;
In silent pomp they laid him down-
But for all the wealth in Bristol town
I would not be with his soul !

“Didst see a house below the hill,

Which the winds and the rains destroy? The man in that farm house did dwell; And I remember it full well

When I was a growing boy.

"But she was a poor parish girl,
Who came up from the west;
From service hard she ran away,
And at that house in evil day
Was taken into rest.

"A man of a bad name was he;
An evil life he led;

Passion made his dark face turn white;
And his grey eyes were large and light,
And in anger they grew red.

"The man was bad, the mother worse,
Bad fruit of an evil stem!

"Twould make your hair to stand on end, If I should tell to you, my friend,

The things that were told of them!

"This poor girl she had served with them Some half a year or more,

When she was found hung up one day,
Stiff as a corpse, and cold as clay,

Behind the stable door.

"It is a wild and lonesome place;

No hut or house is near;

Should one meet a murderer there alone, "Twere vain to scream, and the dying groan Could never reach mortal ear.

"And there were strange reports about;
But still the coroner found

That she by her own hand had died,
And should buried be by the wayside,
And not in Christian ground.

"They carried her upon a board
In the clothes in which she died;
We saw the cap blown off her head;
Her face was of a dark, dark red,
Her eyes were starting wide.

"They laid her where these four roads meet,
Here in this very place;

The earth upon her corpse was prest;
This post was driv'n into her breast,
And a stone is on her face."

SOUTHEY.

123. HYMN OF THE HEBREW MAID.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,

WHEN

Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonish'd lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands
Return'd the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answer'd keen; And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze;

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know Thy ways,

And Thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.

And oh when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suff'ring, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn:
But Thou hast said, "The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

124. EVE'S LAMENT ON HER EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

0

[From PARADISE LOST.]

UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of gods? where I had hoped to spend, Quiet though sad, the respite of that day That must be mortal to us both.

O flowers,

That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation, and my last

At eve, which I bred up with tender hand,
From the first op'ning bud, and gave ye names!