Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

SEPTEMBER.

The meridian sun,

Most sweetly smiling with attemper'd beams,
Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth;
Beneath its yellow luster groves and woods,
Checker'd by one night's frost with various hues,
While yet no wind has swept a leaf away,

Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight

Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged
Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues,
The yellow, red, or purple of the trees
That, singly, or in tufts, or forests thick,
Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side
Of some high mount reflected far below,
With its bright colors, intermixed with spots
Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad
To wander in the open fields, and hear,
E'en at this hour, the noonday hardly past,
The lulling insects of the summer's night;
To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard,
A lonely bee, long roving here and there

To find a single flower, but all in vain ;
Then rising quick, and with a louder hum,
In widening circles round and round his head,
Straight by the listener flying clear away,
As if to bid the fields a last adieu;

To hear, within the woodland's sunny side,

Late full of music, nothing, save perhaps

The sound of nutshells, by the squirrel dropp'd

From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves.

CARLOS WILCOX, 1794-1827.

OCTOBER.

A SONNET.

Ay, thou art welcome, Heaven's delicious breath,

When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,

And the year smiles as it draws near its death.

Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay

In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,

Journeying, in long serenity, away.

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I

Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks,
And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,

And music of kind voices ever nigh;

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass

Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

NOVEMBER.

[ocr errors]

A SONNET.

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,

Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,

And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,

And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze

Nods lonely, of the beauteous race the last.

Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee

Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,

The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,

And men delight to linger in thy ray.

Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear

The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

NOVEMBER.

November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sree;
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,

So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trill'd the streamlet through;
Now murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our forest hills is shed;

No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath pass'd the heather-bells,
That bloom'd so rich on Needpath-fell,
Sallow his brow, and russet bare,
Are now the sister heights of Yair.
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To shelter'd dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sunbeam shines;
In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill :
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold;
His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel;
A cowering glance they often cast,

As deeper moans the gathering blast.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

NOVEMBER IN ENGLAND.

No sun-no moon!

No morn-no noon

No dawn-no dusk-no proper time of day-
No sky-no earthly view-

No distance, looking blue

No road- —no street-no t'other side the way

No end to any "row"

No indications where the "crescents"

No top to any steeple

No recognitions of familiar people

No courtesies for showing 'em-

No knowing 'em!—

No traveling at all-no locomotion

No inkling of the way--no notion

66

No go," by land or ocean

No mail-no post

No news from any foreign coast

No park, no ring-no afternoon gentility-
No company, or nobility-

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member-
No shade-no shine-no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds.
November!

T. HOOD.

SONNET.

NOVEMBER, 1792.

There is strange music in the stirring wind
When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone
To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone,
Whose ancient trees on the rough slope-reclined
Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sear.

If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,
Thou late hast pass'd the happier hours of spring,
With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;
Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn
Or eve thou'st shared, to distant scenes shall stray.
O spring, return! return, auspicious May!
But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,
If she return not with thy cheering ray,

Who from these shades is gone, gone far away!

SONG.

DECEMBER.

I.

REV. WILLIAM L. BOWLES.

A spirit haunts the year's last hours,
Dwelling amidst these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;

For at eventide, listening earnestly,

At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,

In the walks;

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks of the moldering flowers; Heavily hangs the broad sun-flower

O'er its grave, the earth so chilly;

Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

II.

The air is damp, and hushed, and close,
As a rich man's room, where he taketh repose
An hour before death;

My very heart faints, and my whole soul grieves

At the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves,

And the breath

Of the fading edges of box beneath, and the year's last rose.

Heavily hangs the broad sun-flower

Over its grave, the earth so chilly;

Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »