THE DIRGE OF THE YEAR. 167 As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So white Winter, that rough nurse, For your mother in her shroud. As the wild air stirs and sways Rocks the year :-be calm and mild, January gray is here, Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, March with grief doth howl and rave; And April weeps, but, O ye hours! SHELLEY. PRAISE OF A COUNTRY LIFE. MISTAKEN mortals ! did you know You'd scorn proud towers And seek them in these bowers, Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake, But blustering care could never tempest make, Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us, Save of fountains that glide by us. Here's no fantastic masque or dance, But of our kids that frisk and prance; Nor wars are seen, Unless upon the green Two harmless lambs are butting one another Which done, both bleating run each to his mother; And wounds are never found, Save what the ploughshare gives the ground. Go! let the diving negro seek For gems hid in some forlorn creek ; We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morn Congeals upon each little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass; And gold ne'er here appears, Save what the yellow harvest bears. SIR HENRY WOTTON. THE TRUMPET. THE trumpet's voice hath roused the land,- A hundred banners on the breeze The chief is arming in his hall, The peasant by his hearth; And rises from the earth. Looks with a boding eye— They come not back, though all be won, The bard hath ceased his song, and bound E'en for the marriage-altar crown'd, The lover quits his bride. And all this haste, and change, and fear, How will it be when kingdoms hear MRS. HEMANS. THE CORAL INSECT. TOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train, Who build in the tossing and treacherous main ; With your sand-based structures and domes of rock; Ye 're a puny race, thus to boldly rear A fabric so vast in a realm so drear. Ye bind the deep with your secret zone, But why do you plant 'neath the billows dark THE CORAL INSECT. 171 With mouldering bones the deeps are white, Ye build,-ye build,-but ye enter not in, Like the tribes whom the Desert devour'd in their sin; Ye slumber unmark'd 'mid the desolate main, While the wonder and pride of your works remain. MRS. SIGOURNEY. |