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9.

THE SPARROW's NEST.

Look, five blue eggs are gleaming there!

Few visions have I seen more fair,

Nor many prospects of delight

More pleasing than that simple sight!

I started seeming to espy

The home and shelter'd bed,

The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by

My Father's House, in wet or dry,

My Sister Emmeline and I

Together visited.

She look'd at it as if she fear'd it;
Still wishing, dreading to be near it:
Such heart was in her, being then
A little Prattler among men.

The Blessing of my later years

Was with me when a Boy;

She gave me eyes, she

gave me ears;

And humble cares, and delicate fears;

A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;

And love, and thought, and joy.

10.

GIPSIES.

Yet are they here?—the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!

Men, Women, Children, yea the frame
Of the whole Spectacle the same!

Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light:
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,

Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.

-Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours, are gone while I

Have been a Traveller under open sky,

Much witnessing of change and chear,

Yet as I left I find them here!

'The

weary Sun betook himself to rest.

--Then issued Vesper from the fulgent West,
Outshining like a visible God

The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour,
And one night's diminution of her power,

Behold the mighty Moon! this way

She looks as if at them- but they Regard not her:-oh better wrong and strife Better vain deeds or evil than such life!

The silent Heavens have goings on;

The stars have tasks- but these have none.

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Oblithe New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice:

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass,

I hear thy restless shout:

From hill to hill it seems to pass,
About, and all about!

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