PART III.

EARLY POEMS.

INSCRIBED TO SIR GEORGE STAUNTON, BART.

THE SHUNAMITE.*

It was a sultry day of summer time.
The sun pour'd down upon the ripen'd grain
With quivering heat, and the suspended leaves
Hung motionless. The cattle on the hills

Stood still, and the divided flock were all
Laying their nostrils to the cooling roots,
And the sky look'd like silver, and it seem'd
As if the air had fainted, and the pulse

Of nature had run down, and ceas'd to beat.

"Haste thee, my child!" the Syrian mother said, 2 Kings iv. 18-37.

Thy father is athirst”—and from the depths
Of the cool well under the leaning tree,

She drew refreshing water, and with thoughts
Of God's sweet goodness stirring at her heart,
She bless'd her beautiful boy, and to his way
Committed him. And he went lightly on,
With his soft hands press'd closely to the cool
Stone vessel, and his little naked feet

Lifted with watchful care, and o'er the hills,

And through the light green hollows, where the lambs
Go for the tender grass, he kept his way,
Wiling its distance with his simple thoughts,
Till, in the wilderness of sheaves, with brows
Throbbing with heat, he set his burthen down.

Childhood is restless ever, and the boy
Stay'd not within the shadow of the tree,
But with a joyous industry went forth
Into the reapers' places, and bound up
His tiny sheaves, and plaited cunningly
The pliant withs out of the shining straw,

Cheering their labour on, till they forgot
The very weariness of their stooping toil
In the beguiling of his earnest mirth.
Presently he was silent, and his eye

Closed as with dizzy pain, and with his hand
Press'd hard upon his forehead, and his breast
Heaving with the suppression of a cry,

He utter'd a faint murmur, and fell back
Upon the loosen'd sheaf, insensible.

They bore him to his mother, and he lay
Upon her knees till noon-and then he died!
She had watch'd every breath, and kept her hand
Soft on his forehead, and gaz'd in upon
The dreamy languor of his listless eye,
And she had laid back all his sunny curls,
And kiss'd his delicate lip, and lifted him
Into her bosom, till her heart grew strong—
His beauty was so unlike death! She leaned
Over him now, that she might catch the low
Sweet music of his breath, that she had learn'd