A SUMMER LONGINGS. H! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May; Waiting for the pleasant rambles, Where the fragrant hawthorne brambles With the woodbine alternating Scent the dewy way; Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Ah! my heart is sick with longing, Ah! my heart is sick with longing, Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Sighing for their sure returning, Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing, Glide the streams away. Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing. Throbbing for the May. Waiting, sad, dejected, weary, Man is ever weary, weary, Waiting for the May. DENIS FLORENCE MCCARTHY. A DREAM OF SUMMER. BLAN southwest breezes play; And through its haze, the winter noon Again the mossy earth looks forth, The fox his hillside cell forsakes, Of summer days to thee." So, in these winters of the soul, Reviving Hope and Faith, they show And how, beneath the winter's snow, The Night is mother of the Day, The greenest mosses cling; JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. THEY COME! THE MERRY SUMMER MONTHS. THE HEY come! the merry summer months of beauty, song and flowers; They come! the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers. Up, up, my heart, and walk abroad; fling cark and care aside; Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide; Or underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree, Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquility. The grass is soft, its velvet touch is grateful to the hand, And like the kiss of maiden love the breeze is sweet and bland; The daisy and the buttercup are nodding courteously; It stirs their blood with kindest love, to bless and welcome thee; And mark how with thine own thin locks- Thou seest their glittering fans outspread, all gleaming like red gold, And hark! with shrill pipe musical their merry course they hold. "They come! the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers. There is no cloud that sails along the ocean God bless them all, those little ones, who far of yon sky above this earth, nobler mirth. a mighty heart of joy! Through the blooming groves we rusti-, Kissing every bud we pass, As we did it in the bustle, Down the glen, across the mountain, O'er the yellow heath we roam, Whirling round about the fountain Till its little breakers foam. Bending down the weeping willows, There of idlenesses dreaming, Scarce from waking we refrain, Moments long as ages deeming Till we're at our play again. GEORGE DARLEY. "CARPE DIEM." [OW, in the season of flowers, I'm sadder now; I have had cause; but Oh, Now, when the summer is bright, Now we sing, and now we mourn, Now we whistle, now we sigh. By the grassy-fringed river, When Phoebus stays long with the hours, And the earth hardly knows any night, The time for enjoyment is ours, The time for delight. Ere the chill winds have scattered the roses, And the cold winter months have their birth, Let us join, ere the year its youth loses, Ah, sweet, youth can last not forever, But will fade like a dream that is naught, Though we fancy that summer dies never, And on winter bestow not a thought; But Time is a weariless weaver, His task is soon wrought. Through the murmuring reeds we sweep; Then we'll spend not our days in sad guesses 'Mid the lily-leaves we quiver, To their very hearts we creep. Now the maiden rose is blushing As to what the dim future may bring, But we'll cast off each thought that oppresses. For life is a fugitive thing; And, happy in love's soft caresses, ANONYMOUS. JUNE DAYS. THE HE whilom hills of gray, whose tender The yellow streams that fled from Winter's shades Were dashed with meagre tints of early Spring, Lift now their rustling domes and cannonades, And from the airy battlements they fling Their banners to the wind, and in the glades Spread rich pavilions for the Summer's king. Now lifts the love-lit soul, and life's full tide Swells from the ground and beats the trembling air, hold When first the young year saw the vernal moon, And lipped the yielding banks whose moistened mould Slipped mingling with the flood, now sleep at noon, Calm as the imaged hills which they enfold, All glimmering in the long, long skies of June. The brindled meadow hides the winding path With interlacing clover, white and red; To drowse and dream with mild, half-open- Sweet Evening waits till golden Day, re ing eyes. No other days are like the days in June; They stand upon the summit of the year, For violets dead; they will engird full soon leased, Shall lead her blushing down the world's decline. And when the day is done, a crimson band Lies glowing on the hushed and darkening west; The sweet full breasts of summer drawing The groups of trees like whispering spirits LOWERS seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity; children love them: quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the |