world

Is all his own, retiring as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

He who has not enough for these to spare, Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart, And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair

Nature is always wise in every part.

LORD THURLOW,

WINTER SONG.

SUMMER joys are o'er;

Flowerets bloom no more,
Wintry winds are sweeping;
Through the snow-drifts, peeping.
Cheerful evergreen
Rarely now is seen.

Now no plumed throng

Charms the wood with song;
Ice-bound trees are glittering;
Merry snow-birds, twittering,
Fondly strive to cheer
Scenes so cold and drear.

Winter, still I see

Many charms in thee-
Love thy chilly greeting,
Snow-storms fiercely beating,
And the dear delights
Of the long, long nights.

LUDWIG HOLTY. (German.)

Translation of C. T. BROOKS.

TO THE REDBREAST.

SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours

Of winters past or coming, void of care;
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling
flowers-

To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers

Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare, A stain to human sense in sin that lowers. What soul can be so sick which by thy songs (Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,

And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven!

Sweet, artless songster! thou my mind dost raise

To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND

While through the meadows,

113

Like fearful shadows,

Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds

To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within

Like a funeral bell.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

A SONG FOR THE SEASONS.

WHEN the merry lark doth gild

With his song the summer hours,
And their nests the swallows build
In the roofs and tops of towers,
And the golden broom-flower burns
All about the waste,

And the maiden May returns
With a pretty haste,-

Then, how merry are the times!
The Summer times! the Spring times!

Now, from off the ashy stone

The chilly midnight cricket crieth, And all merry birds are flown,

And our dream of pleasure dieth;
Now the once blue, laughing sky
Saddens into gray,

And the frozen rivers sigh,
Pining all away!

Now, how solemn are the times!
The Winter times! the Night times!

Yet, be merry: all around

Is through one vast change revolving;
Even Night, who lately frowned,

Is in paler dawn dissolving;
Earth will burst her fetters strange,
And in Spring grow free;
All things in the world will change,
Save-my love for thee!

Sing then, hopeful are all times!
Winter, Summer, Spring times!

BARRY CORNWALL.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry Hours, smile instead,

For the Year is but asleep:
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So white Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold Year to-day;
Solemn Hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.
As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days.

Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild, Trembling Hours; she will arise With new love within her eyes.

January gray is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier;

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O ye Hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers. PERCY BYSSIE SHELLEY.

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE
IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND YOUTH.

WISDOM and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul, that art the eternity of thought!
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul—
Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man,
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With Life and Nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear,-until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights,

When, by the margin of the trembling lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine.
Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the Summer long;
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight
blazed,

I heeded not the summons. Happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village-clock tolled six; I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with
steel,

We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding
horn,

The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle. With the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed; while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the

west

The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired

Into a silent bay, or sportively

Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me,-even as if the Earth had rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler; and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

HYMN

BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to
pause

On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black-
An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crysta
shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer

I worshipped the Invisible alone.

throng,

To cut across the reflex of a star

Image, that, flying still before me, gleaned
Upon the glassy plain. And oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spin-
ning still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,

Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to
Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, | Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.