Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath, and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost peep, Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too;
While barred clouds bloom the soft dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue,
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft,

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies!

And full grown lambs bleat loud from hilly bourn; Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft, The redbreast whistles from a garden croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies! JOHN KEATS.

LINES BY SIR KENELM DIGBY.

JAME, honour, beauty, state, trains, blood, and

birth,

Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great; but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill.
I would be high; but see the proudest oak,
More subject to the rending thunderstroke.
I would be rich; but see man, too unkind,
Dig out the bowels of the richest mine.
I would be wise; but that the fox I see
Suspected guilty, whilst the ass goes free.

I would be fair; but see that champion proud,
The bright sun often setting in a cloud.

I would be poor; but see the humble grass
Trampled upon by each unworthy ass.

Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorn'd if poor;
Great, fear'd; fair, tempted; high, still envied more.

EXTRACT FROM AYMER'S TOMB.

DAY by day,

On Aymer's tomb fresh flowers in garlands lay,
Through the dim fane soft summer odours breathing;
And all the pale sepulchral trophies wreathing,
And with a flush of deeper brilliance glowing
In the rich light, like molten rubies flowing
From pictured windows down. The violet there
Might speak of love—a secret love and lowly;
And the rose, image of all things fleet and fair,
And the faint passion-flower, the sad and holy,
Tell of diviner hopes. But whose light hand,
As for an altar, wove the radiant band?

Whose gentle nurture brought from hidden dells,
That gem-like wealth of blossoms and sweet bells,
To blush through every season! Blight and chill
Might touch the changing woods; but duly still,
For years, those gorgeous coronals renewed,
And, brightly clasping marble, spear and helm,
Even in mid-winter filled the solitude

With a strange smile, a glow of sunshine's realm.
MRS. HEMANS.

The Evergreen.

5

THE LAUREL.

IS sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair.

Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit
Of his imperious love,

At her own prayer transformed, took root
A laurel in the grove.

Then did the penitent adorn

His brow with laurel green;

And 'mid his bright locks never shorn

No meaner leaf was seen;

And poets sage, in every age,

About their temples wound

The bay, and conquerors thanked the gods
With laurel chaplets crowned.

Into the mists of fabling time
So far runs back the praise
Of beauty, which disdains to climb
Along forbidden ways;

That scorns temptation, power defies,

Where mutual love is not;

And to the tomb for rescue flies

When life would be a blot.

WORDSWORTH.

A CONCEIT.

WHENCE came the pleasant flowers, Those beautiful and ever welcome things? Were they in Eden's bowers,

Born of the dewy showers,

The angels scatter'd from their radiant wings?
So when the Deluge came, and nature bow'd
Before the deeps that like a vasty shroud
Enclosed together all that round us lies,
The seeds of Adam's happy paradise
Mingled with those of our impurer earth,
And thus the flowers had universal birth.
MARK LEMON.

THE MICHAELMAS DAISY.

LAST Smile of the departing year,
Thy sister sweets are flown;

Thy pensive wreath is far more dear
For blooming thus alone.

Thy tender blush, thy simple frame,
Unnoticed might have passed;

But now thou com'st with softer claim,
The loveliest and the last!

Sweet are the charms in thee we find,

Emblem of hope's gay wing;

'Tis thine to call past bloom to mind, To promise future spring.