As time steals on, fiom day to day,

And nothing stands at one same stay, The wind-blast softly seems to sigh, 'Man's lifetime glides away as I.'

As clapper-sounded bells ring fast,
They tell the moments out, and clocks
That slowly sound by knocks on knocks,
May tell how daily hours have pass'd;
In Sunday chimes a week is fled,
In Easter knells a year is dead,
And airy bell-sounds seem to say,
Like us man's lifetime glides away.

DEADNESS OF THE COUNTRY

O NO, 'twas lifeless here, he said,
To him the place seem'd all but dead,
Stone-dead, he said, but why so dead,
On lands with chirping birds on wing,
And rooks on high, with blackbirds nigh,
And swallows wheeling round in ring,
And fish to swim, where waters roam,
By bridge and rock to fall in foam.

THE BENCH BY THE GARDEN WALL

As day might cool, and in the pool,
The shaded waves might ripple dim,

We used to walk, or sit in talk,

Below the limetree's leaning limb,

Where willows' drooping boughs might fall

Around us, near the garden wall.

Where children's heads on evening beds,

In dull-ear'd sleep were settled sound,

The moon's bright ring would slowly spring,
From down behind the woody mound,

With light that slanted down on all

The willows nigh the garden wall.

72

THE BENCH BY THE GARDEN WALL

By roof-eaves spread up over head,

There clung the wren's brown nest of hay,

And wind would make the ivy shake,

And your dark locks of hair to play,

As you would tell the news of all

The day, beside the garden wall.

The while might run, the summer sun,

On high, above the green-tree'd land,

Few days would come, for jaunts from home,

And none without some work on hand,

Yet we enjoy'd at eveningfall,

Our bench beside the garden wall.

Our flow'rs would blow, our fruit would grow,

To hang in air, or lie on ground,

Our bees would hum, or go and come

By small-door'd hives, well hackled round;

All this we had, and over all

Our bench beside the garden wall.

THE STONEN STEPS

A MAN AND HIS FRIEND

M. THESE Stonen steps that stand so true
With tread on tread, a foot-reach wide,
Have always climb'd the sloping side
Of this steep ledge, for me and you;
Had people built the steps before

They turn'd the arch of our old door?
Were these old stairs laid down by man,
Before the bridge's archèd span ?

Did workmen set these stones so trim

Before they built the spire so slim?

Fr. Ah! who can tell when first-aye who,These steps first bore a shoe.