Then came the Autumne, all in yellow clad, THE SEASONS.

As though he joyed in his plenteous store, So issued forth the seasons of the year ;

Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad First lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowers That he had banished hunger, which to-fore That freshly budded, and new blossoms did bear, Had by the belly oft him pinched sore ; In which a thousand birds had built their bowers, Upon his head a wreath, that was enrold That sweetly sung to call forth paramours ; With ears of corne of every sort, he bore, And in his hand a javelin he did bear,

And in his hand a sickle he did holde, And on his head (as fit for warlike stores) To reape the ripened fruit the which the earth A gilt engraven morion he did wear,

had yold. That, as some did him love, so others did him Faörie Qucene, Book vii.

SPENSER fear. Facric Queene, Book vii.

Autumn nodding o'er the yellow plain.

SPENSER

March,

Sonnet XCVIII.

SHAKESPEARE.

The stormy March has come at last,

With winds and clouds and changing skies ; And the ripe harvest of the new mown hay I hear the rushing of the blast

Gives it a sweet and wholesome odor. That through the snowy valley flies.

Richard III. (Altered), Act v. Sc. 3. COLLEY CIBBER. W. C. BRYANT.

Lastly came Winter, cloathed all in frize, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill ; Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freeze,

And the dull drops that from his purple bill 0, how this spring of love resembleth

As from a limbeck did adown distill ; The uncertain glory of an April day!

In his right hand a tipped staff he held

With which his feeble steps he stayed still, The Tempest, Act .. Sc. 3.

For he was faint with cold and weak with eld, As it fell upon a day

That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to weld. In the merry month of May.

Facrie Queene, Book vii.

SPENSER The Passionate Pilgrim.

O Winter, ruler of the inverted year.
For May wol have no slogardie a-night.
The seson priketh every gentil herte,

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,
And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte. And dreaded as thou art !
Canterbury Tales : The Knightes Tale.

The Task: Winter Evening

SHAKESPEARE.

SHAKESPEARE.

CHAUCER.

COW PER

Chaste as the icicle, That's curded by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian's temple : dear Valeria ! Coriolanus, Act v. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Silently as a dream the fabric rose,
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.
Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts
Were soon conjoined.

The Task : Winter Morning Walk.

Who first beholds those everlasting clouds,
Seedtime and harvest, morning, noon, and night,
Still where they were, steadfast, immovable ;
Who first beholds the Alps — that mighty chain
Of mountains, stretching on from east to west,
So massive, yet so shadowy, so ethereal,
As to belong rather to heaven than earth
But instantly receives into his soul
A sense, a feeling that he loses not,
A something that informs him 't is a moment
Whence he may date henceforward and forever !

Italy.

COW PER.

ROGERS.

SOUNDS OF NATURE.
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.

The Task: The Sofa.

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains ;

They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,

With a diadem of snow.
Manfred, Act i. Sc. 1.

COWPER.

BYRON

See where it smokes along the sounding plain,
Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain ;
Peal upon peal, redoubling all around,
Shakes it again and faster to the ground.

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me ; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.

Childe Harold, Cant. iii.

BYRON

In winter when the dismal rain

Came down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote

His thunder-harp of pines.
A Life Drama.

A. SMITH.

WATER.

Under the yaller-pines I house,

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, An' hear among their furry boughs

The baskin' west-wind purr contented. Biglow Papers, Serond Series, No. x.

J.R. LOWELL.

The Story of Rimini.

ניוור .1

The current, that with gentle murmur glides,

With spots of sunny openings, and with nooks Thou know'st, being stopped, impatiently doth To lie and read in, sloping into brooks.

rage ;
But, when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones, Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

Close sat I by a goodly river's side,
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.

Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm; Tro Gentiemen of Verona, Aa ii. Sc. 7.

A lonely place, with pleasures dignified.

I, that once loved the shady woods so well,
Every sound is sweet ;

Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,

And if the sun would ever shine, there would I The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

dwell. And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Contemplations. The Princess, Cant, vii.

SHAKESPEARE.

ANNE BRADSTREET.

A. COWLEY.

SHAKESPEARE.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,

FLOWERS.
And drinks and gapes for drink again ;
The plants suck in the earth, and are

No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on ground, With constant drinking fresh and fair.

No arborett with painted blossoms drest A nacrcontiques.

And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd

To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels When that I was and a little tiny boy,

al arownd. With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

Faérie Queene, Book ii. Cant, vl.

SPENSER A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day.

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use

Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1.

On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks;

Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! That on the green turf suck the honied showers, blow!

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,

The glowing violet, Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, yoni

And every flower that sad embroidery wears. Froni seasons such as these ?

Lycidas. King Lear, act iii. Sc. 4.

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, Till, in the furious elemental war

When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass

Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. Unbroken floods and solid torrents pour.

LONGFELLOW.

King

car, Act iii. Sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE.

MILTOX.

SHAKESPEARE.

Flowers

The Seasons: Summer.

THOMSON.

Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky,

When storms prepare to part ; I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art.

With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
The same dew, which sometimes on the buds
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls
Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
Midsummer Night's Dream, Ad iv. Sc. I.

7o the Rainbow).

T. CAMPBELL.

SHAKESPEARE

How falls it, oriole, thou hast come to fly
In tropic splendor through our Northern sky?

At some glad moment was it nature's choice
To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice ?

Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black,
In some forgotten garden, ages back,

Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, Desire unspeakably to be a bird ?

EDGAR FAWCETT.