‘Oh, my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh? 10 Now they look abroad to see, Now return and weep for me.’ Pitying, I dropped a tear: But I saw a glowworm near, Who replied, ‘What wailing wight 15 Calls the watchman of the night? ‘I am set to light the ground, While the beetle goes his round. Follow now the beetle’s hum, Little wanderer, hie thee home!’ 20 _William Blake._ CLXXVI _DECEMBER MORNING._ I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light, Winter’s pale dawn; and as warm fires illume, And cheerful tapers shine around the room, Through misty windows bend my musing sight, Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white 5 With shutters closed peer faintly through the gloom, That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume, Rising from their dark pile, an added height By indistinctness given--Then to decree The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold 10 To friendship or the Muse, or seek with glee Wisdom’s rich page. O hours more worth than gold, By whose blest use we lengthen life, and, free From drear decays of age, outlive the old! _Anna Seward._ CLXXVII _THE THRUSH’S NEST._ Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, That overhung a molehill large and round, I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the sound With joy--and oft, an unintruding guest, 5 I watched her secret toils from day to day; How true she warped the moss to form her nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay. And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, 10 Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue: And there I witnessed in the summer hours A brood of nature’s minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky. _John Clare._ CLXXVIII _TIME._ O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence, Lulling to sad repose the weary sense, The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, 5 And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear, I may look back on every sorrow past And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile; As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour, 10 Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while; Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure, Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure. _William Lisle Bowles._ CLXXIX _FANCY IN NUBIBUS._