Smit with those charms, that must decay, From morning suns and evening dews For when you die you are the same; Philip Freneau: 1752-1832. An American poet and journalist. In the American War of Independence, Freneau was captured by the British (1780), and kept a prisoner till the war was over. For several years afterwards he was alternately a sea-captain and a newspaper editor. His numerous essays and political articles were powerfully written he was a true poet, and both Campbell and Scott are said to have borrowed from his works. : TO THE BRAMBLE FLOWER. THY fruit full well the schoolboy knows, So put thou forth thy small white rose; Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow Thou need'st not be ashamed to show For dull the eye, the heart is dull, That cannot feel how fair, Amid all beauty beautiful, 1 vestige-sign or trace. How delicate thy gauzy frill ! How rich thy branchy stem! How soft thy voice when woods are still A sweet air lifts the little bough, Lone whispering through the bush But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring, The fresh green days of life's fair spring, Scorned bramble of the brake! once more To gad1 with thee the woodlands o'er, Ebenezer Elliott: 1781-1849. Elliott was the son of an ironfounder at Masborough, Yorkshire, -and followed the same business himself for many years. He first attracted attention by his Corn-Law Rhymes; but he also wrote much good and true poetry, and was respected as a good and true man. THE DAFFODILS. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud, A host of golden daffodils; Beside a lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 1 gad-ramble gaily. Continuous as the stars that shine The waves beside them danced; but they In such a jocund1 company. I gazed, and gazed, but little thought For oft when on my couch I lie, And then my heart with pleasure fills, William Wordsworth: 1770-1850. (See page 52.) TO THE DANDELION. DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge2 of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold, An Eldorado in the grass have found, 5 Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth,—thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow1 Through the primeval 2 hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 'Tis the spring's largess,3 which she scatters now To take it at God's value, but pass by Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: His conquered Sybaris," than I, when first The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,— Some woodland gap,-and of a sky above, My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang cheerily all day long, 1 2 prow the forepart or cut-water of a galley: also a kind of ship. primeval-original, first, or undisturbed. 3 largess-bounty. 4 cuirass-armour for breast and shoulders. 5 Sybaris-an ancient Italian city, once famous for its power and the luxurious life of its inhabitants. The aptness of the allusion lies in the fact that Sybaris was overcome by Crotona, a neighbouring city, whose inhabitants had learnt the bee-like virtues of sobriety, industry, and frugality from Pythagoras. Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he did bring How like a prodigal doth nature seem, More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam And with a child's undoubting wisdom look James Russell Lowell: born, 1819. (See page 22.) THE HOLLY TREE. OH, Reader! hast thou ever stood to see The eye that contemplates it well, perceives Order'd by an Intelligence so wise, As might confound the atheist's sophistries.1 No grazing cattle through their prickly round But, as they grow where nothing is to fear, I love to view these things with curious eyes, And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree, Can emblems see, Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme, 1 confound the atheist's sophistries-overthrow the false argu ments of the unbeliever in God. |