THE gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their sparing harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen; but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, O grateful think,
How good the God of Harvest is to you,
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields !
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole.

THOMSON.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice;

O Cuckoo shall I call thee bird,

Or but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear!
From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off and near!

I hear thee babbling to the vale

Of sunshine and of flowers;

And unto me thou bring'st a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery ;

The same who in my schoolboy days

I listened to; that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways

In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;

Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, fairy place;

That is fit home for thee!

WORDSWORTH.

Ir is not only in the sacred fane

That homage should be paid to the Most High;
There is a temple, one not made with hands—
The vaulted firmament: Far in the woods,
Almost beyond the sound of city chime,
At intervals heard through the breezeless air;
When not the limberest leaf is seen to move,
Save where the linnet lights upon the spray;
When not a floweret bends its little stalk,
Save where the bee alights upon the bloom ;
There, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love,
The man of God will pass the Sabbath noon;
Silence his praise.

GRAHAME.