Ye have beheld where they The richer cowslips home; You've heard them sweetly sing, And seen them in a round; Each virgin, like the Spring, With honeysuckles crowned. But now we see none here Whose silvery feet did tread, And with dishevelled hair Adorned this smoother mead. Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock, and needy grown, You're left here to lament Your poor estates alone. ROBERT HERRICK. The Husbandman. EARTH, of man the bounteous mother, Feeds him still with corn and wine; He who best would aid a brother, Shares with him these gifts divine. Many a power within her bosom, Noiseless, hidden, works beneath; Hence are seed, and leaf, and blossom, Golden ear and clustered wreath. These to swell with strength and beauty Is the royal task of man; Since his work on earth began. What the dream, but vain rebelling, Wind and frost, and hour and season, Sow thy seed, and reap in gladness! JOHN STERLING. To the Fringed Gentian. Thou comest not when violets lean Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye I would that thus, when I shall see WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. A Still Day in Autumn. I LOVE to wander through the woodlands hoary, How, through each loved, familiar path she lingers, CORNFIELDS. Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining To light the gloom of Autumn's mouldering halls ; With hoary plumes the clematis entwining, Where, o'er the rock, her withered garland falls. Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning The moist winds breathe of crispèd leaves and flowers, In the damp hollows of the woodland sown, Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow, Upon those soft, fringed lids the bee sits brooding, Or, with shut wings, through silken folds intruding, Creeps near her heart his drowsy tale to tell. The little birds upon the hill-side lonely Flit noiselessly along from spray to spray, Silent as a sweet, wandering thought, that only Shows its bright wings and softly glides away. The scentless flowers, in the warm sunlight dreaming, Forget to breathe their fulness of delight; And through the tranced woods soft airs are streaming, Still as the dew-fall of the Summer night. So, in my heart, a sweet, unwonted feeling SARAH HELEN WHITMAN. What joy in dreamy ease to lie Amid a field new shorn, The piled-up stacks of corn: I feel the day- I see the field, Again I see a little child, His mother's sole delight,- The kind good Shunamite ; The sun-bathed quiet of the hills, Oh, golden fields of bending corn, Cornfields. WHEN on the breath of autumn breeze The fair white thistle-down, Autumn Flowers. THOSE few pale Autumn flowers, How beautiful they are! Than all that went before, Than all the Summer store, How lovelier far! 83 Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn And then I think of one who in her youthful leaves lie dead; beauty died, They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rab- The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by bit's tread. my side. |