_In the School of ---- is a tablet on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the federal persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines_. If Nature, for a favorite Child In thee hath temper'd so her clay, That every hour thy heart runs wild Yet never once doth go astray, Read o'er these lines; and then review This tablet, that thus humbly rears In such diversity of hue Its history of two hundred years. --When through this little wreck of fame, Cypher and syllable, thine eye Has travell'd down to Matthew's name, Pause with no common sympathy. And if a sleeping tear should wake Then be it neither check'd nor stay'd: For Matthew a request I make Which for himself he had not made. Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er, Is silent as a standing pool, Far from the chimney's merry roar, And murmur of the village school. The sighs which Matthew heav'd were sighs Of one tir'd out with fun and madness; The tears which came to Matthew's eyes Were tears of light, the oil of gladness. Yet sometimes when the secret cup Of still and serious thought went round It seem'd as if he drank it up, He felt with spirit so profound. --Thou soul of God's best earthly mould, Thou happy soul, and can it be That these two words of glittering gold Are all that must remain of thee? The Two April Mornings. We walk'd along, while bright and red Uprose the morning sun, And Matthew stopp'd, he look'd, and said, "The will of God be done!" A village Schoolmaster was he, With hair of glittering grey; As blithe a man as you could see On a spring holiday. And on that morning, through the grass, And by the steaming rills, We travell'd merrily to pass A day among the hills. "Our work," said I, "was well begun; Then, from thy breast what thought, Beneath so beautiful a sun, So sad a sigh has brought?" A second time did Matthew stop, And fixing still his eye Upon the eastern mountain-top To me he made reply. Yon cloud with that long purple cleft Brings fresh into my mind A day like this which I have left Full thirty years behind. And on that slope of springing corn The self-same crimson hue Fell from the sky that April morn, The same which now I view! With rod and line my silent sport I plied by Derwent's wave, And, coming to the church, stopp'd short Beside my Daughter's grave. Nine summers had she scarcely seen The pride of all the vale; And then she sang!--she would have been A very nightingale. Six feet in earth my Emma lay, And yet I lov'd her more, For so it seem'd, than till that day I e'er had lov'd before. And, turning from her grave, I met Beside the church-yard Yew A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet With points of morning dew.