The sparkling dewdrops will not stay.

Sweet month of May,

We must away;

Far, far away!

To-day to-day!'

CL.

ROBERT SOUTHEY,

1774-1843.

O

THE HOLLY TREE.

READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves

Ordered by an intelligence so wise,

As might confound the atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen ;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,

And moralize :

And in this wisdom of the holly tree

Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after time.

Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear

Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude

Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know, Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree.

And as when all the summer trees are seen

So bright and green,

The holly leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the holly tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay

More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be

As the green winter of the holly tree.

CLI.

CHARLES LAMB,

1775-1834.

W

HESTER.

HEN maidens such as Hester die,

Their place ye may not well supply,

Though ye among a thousand try,

With vain endeavour.

A month or more hath she been dead,

Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate

Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flushed her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,

She did inherit.

Her parents held the Quaker rule,
Which doth the human feeling cool,

But she was trained in Nature's school,
Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

My sprightly neighbour, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet fore-warning?

I

CLII.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.