Nature all abounds in love,
What is there but feels its power?
Hear it warbling in the grove!
See it blooming in a flower!
What's attraction, pray, but love?
And affinity's the same."
But the tender passion does not seem to have engrossed all his poetical powers, as we find several pieces both grave and gay on different subjects. One of these we shall select as it seems to possess some originality, and has been occasioned apparently by that influx of strangers which generally enlivens the lake district during the summer months; some of whom have probably noticed our mountain bard, if we may judge from one of the stanzas.
THE STRANGER AT THE LAKES.
"When summer suns lick up the dew,
And all the heavens are painted blue,
'Tis then with smiling cheeks we view,
The stranger at the Lakes.
When morning tips with gold the boughs,
And tinges Skiddaw's cloud-kiss'd brows,
Then round the lake the boatman rows,
The stranger at the Lakes.
When gray-rob'd evening steps serene,
Across the sweetly-varied green,
Beside some cascade may be seen
The stranger at the Lakes.
Embosomed here the rustic bard,
Who oft has thought his fortune hard,
Is pleas'd to share the kind regard
Of strangers at the Lakes.
He whose ideas never stray
Beyond the parson's gig and gray,
Stares at the carriage and relay
Of strangers at the Lakes.
As by his cot the phæton flies,
The peasant gapes with mouth and eyes,
And to his wond'ring family cries,
'A stranger at the Lakes!'