BY COTMAN. — TAKEN IN 1807

M OMENTS there are in which
We feel it is not good to be alone!
Shrined in our narrow niche,
As if we would all fellowship disown.

And least of all for me,
A poor recluse and book-worm, is it good
An alien thus to be,
Standing aloof from my own flesh and blood.

In desk-work through the day,
In minstrel labour to the noon of night,
I would not wear away
My sympathy with every social right.

In many an hour of thought,
And solitary musing mood of mind,
Good is it to be brought
Thus into intercourse with human kind.

To see the populous crowd
Who throng the busy market's ample space;
To hear their murmur loud,
And watch the workings of each busy face.

To let my Fancy roam,
As Fancy will, would we but grant her leave.
With each unto his home —
There finding what may glad the heart or grieve.

On all around to look,
With a true heart to feel and sympathize;
As reading in a book,
Those countless windows looking down like eyes

On the dense mass below —
O, who can guess what feelings past and gone,
Of varied weal or woe,
Throbb'd in the busiest there, or lookers on!

Needs there a graver thought
To give the motley scene more solemn power?
How quickly is it brought
By that old church's lengthen'd roof and tower!

It looks down on the scene
Where buyers — sellers — earn their daily bread;
Forming a link between
The busy living and the silent dead.

And ever and anon,
High above all that hubbub's mingled swell,
For some one dead and gone
Is heard its deep sonorous funeral bell.

Thirty-eight years gone by
Thus did this motley moving medley look;
And still unto mine eye
It utters more than any printed book.