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One while a scorching indignation burns
The flowers and blossoms of our hopes away,
Which into scarcity our plenty turns,
And changeth unmown grass to parched hay;
Anon his fruitful showers and pleasing dews,
Commixt with cheerful rays, he sendeth down;
And then the barren earth her crop renews,
Which with rich harvests hills and valleys crown:
For, as to relish joys he sorrow sends,
So comfort on temptation still attends.

GEORGE WITHER, 1588-1667.

SONG.

Composed by Robert Duke of Normandy, when a prisoner in Cardiff Castle, and addressed to an old oak, growing in an ancient camp within view from the tower in which he was confined. Imitated by Bishop Heber.

Oak, that stately and alone

On the war-worn mound hast grown,
The blood of man thy sapling fed,

And dyed thy tender root in red;
Woe to the feast where foes combine,
Woe to the strife of words and wine!

Oak, thou hast sprung for many a year,
'Mid whisp'ring rye-grass tall and sere,
The coarse rank herb, which seems to show
That bones unbless'd are laid below;
Woe to the sword that hates its sheath,
Woe to th' unholy trade of death!

Oak, from the mountain's airy brow,
Thou view'st the subject woods below,

And merchants hail the well-known tree,
Returning o'er the Severn sea.

Woe, woe to him whose birth is high,

For peril waits on royalty!

Now storms have bent thee to the ground,

And envious ivy clips thee round;

And shepherd hinds in wanton play
Have stripped thy needful bark away;
Woe to the man whose foes are strong,
Thrice woe to him who lives too long!

REGINALD HEBER.

ROBERT OF NORMANDY, about 1107.

TO A MOUNTAIN-DAISY,

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOW, APRIL, 1786.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem!

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewie weet,
Wi' speckled breast,

When upward springing, blythe to greet
The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth,

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm-

Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,

High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;

But thou, beneath the random bield,

O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.

There in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sun-ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless breast;

Till she, like thee, all soil'd is laid

Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd,
Unskillful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er.

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,

Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n,

To mis'ry's brink;

Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He ruin'd sink.

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;

Stern ruin's plowshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,

Till, crush'd beneath the furious weight,
Shall be thy doom!

ROBERT BURNS, 1750-1796.

MOSSGIEL.

"There," said a stripling, pointing with much pride
Toward a low roof, with green trees half conceal'd,
"Is Mossgiel farm; and that's the very field
Where Burns plow'd up the daisy!" Far and wide
A plain below stretch'd seaward; while, descried,
Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose;
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air was vivified.

Beneath the random field of clod or stone,
Myriads of daisies here shone forth in flower,
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have pass'd away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling plowshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850.

THE FOREST-LEAVES IN AUTUMN.

FROM "THE CHRISTIAN YEAR."

Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun;
The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crown'd the eastern copse; and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief November day.

Now the tir'd hunter winds a parting note,
And Echo bids good-night from every glade;
Yet wait awhile, and on the calm leaves float
Each to his rest beneath the parent shade.

How like decaying life they seem to glide!

And yet no second spring have they in store; But where they fall forgotten, to abide

Is all their portion, and they ask no more.

Soon o'er their heads blithe April airs shall sing;

A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold;
The green buds glisten in the dews of spring,
And all be vernal rapture as of old.

Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,

In all the world of busy life around
No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky,
No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.

Man's portion is to die and rise again

Yet he complains; while these unmurmuring part
With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain
As his when Eden held his virgin heart.

BOHEMIAN

ANCIENT SONG.

O ye forests, dark-green forests,
Miletinish forests!

Why in summer, and in winter,

Are ye green and blooming?
O! I would not weep and cry,
Nor torment my heart.

JOHN KEBLE.

But now tell me, good folk, tell me,
How should not I cry?

Ah! where is my dear father?

Woe! he lies deep buried.

Where my mother? O good mother!

O'er her grows the grass!

Brothers have I not, nor sisters,

And my lad is gone!

Translated by TALVI.

LANDSCAPE AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.

I wake, I rise; from end to end,

Of all the landscape underneath,

I find no place that doth not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend;

No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheep-walk up the windy wold;

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw,

That hears the latest linnet trill,
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill,
And haunted by the wrangling daw;

Nor rivulet trickling from the rock,

Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves

From left to right through meadowy curves,

That feed the mothers of the flock;

But each has pleased a kindred eye,

And each reflects a kindlier day;
And leaving these, to pass away

I think once more he seems to die.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine is, too, the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed!

W. WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850.

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