After a place so pure and sweet, How well the skilful gardener drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new, Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run, And, as it works, the industrious bee Computes its time as well as we! How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers? MARVELL. LACHIN Y GAIR. AWAY, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses! In you let the minions of luxury rove; Restore me the rocks where the snowflake reposes, For still they are sacred to freedom and love: Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains, Round their white summits though elements war, Though cataracts foam, 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains, I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Gair. Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wandered; My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; On chieftains long perished, my memory pondered, As daily I strode through the pinecovered glade; I sought not my home till the day's dying glory Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star; For Fancy was cheered by traditional story Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Gair. "Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?" Surely the soul of the hero rejoices, And rides on the wind o'er his own Highland vale: Round Loch na Gair, while the stormy mist gathers, Winter presides in his cold icy car; Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers: They dwell in the tempests of dark "Ill-starred, though brave, did no visions foreboding Tell you that Fate had forsaken your cause?" Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden, Victory crowned not your fall with applause; Still were you happy; in death's early slumber You rest with your clan, in the caves of Braemar, alone, Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him. And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call, with quivering peals, And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild Of mirth and jocund din! And when it chanced ways bear; I laugh aloud in sudden gusts of rain To see the ocean lash himself in air; I throw smooth shells and weeds along the beach, And pour the curling waves far o'er the glossy reach; Swing birds' nests in the elms, and shake cool moss Along the aged beams, and hide their loss. The very broad rough stones I gladden too; Some willing seeds I drop along their sides, Nourish the generous plant with freshening dew, Till there where all was waste, true joy abides. The peaks of aged mountains, with I bind the caverns of the sea with hair, Glossy, and long, and rich as kings' estate; I polish the green ice, and gleam the wall With the white frost, and leaf the brown trees tall. CHANNING. THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE. WITHIN the mind strong fancies work, A deep delight the bosom thrills, Of these fraternal hills, Where, save the rugged road, we find No appanage of human kind, Nor hint of man; if stone or rock Tents of a camp that never shall be raised On which four thousand years have gazed! A genius dwells, that can subdue Mists that distort and magnify; While the coarse rushes to the sweeping breeze Sigh forth their ancient melodies! III. List to those shriller notes! that march Perchance was on the blast, Rome's earliest legion passed! Gives to this savage pass its name. SOLITUDE. THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain: Man marks the earth with ruin: his control Stops with the shore: upon the watery plain Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows, and the woods, And mountains, and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognize In Nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts. WORDSWORTH. AH, sunflower! weary of time, Where the traveller's journey is done; Where the youth pined away with desire, And the pale virgin shrouded in snow, Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my sunflower wishes to go. WILLIAM BLAKE. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead: They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay; And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood, In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves: the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago; And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. And now when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still. And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up, and faded by my side: In the cold moist earth we laid her when the forest cast the leaf, we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; And |