In days when birds began to sing,
Because they found the earth was fair;
In halcyon days of happy Spring,
We thought but thus our joys to share.

But pleasure past is present pain;
The petals of the rose are shed;
The piercing thorns alone remain;
I live to sorrow for the dead.

Unknown.

I

THE GLADNESS OF NATURE.

S this a time to be cloudy and sad,

When our mother Nature laughs around; When even the deep blue heavens look glad,

And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale, And here they stretch to the frolic chase, And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,

There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree, There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower, And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

William Cullen Bryant.

Μ'

FOLLOW!

ETHOUGHT among the lawns together

We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind; And the white dew on the new-bladed grass, Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently; And there was more which I remember not: But on the shadows of the morning clouds, Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written FOLLOW, O, FOLLOW! as they vanished by;

And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had

fallen,

The like was stamped, as with a withering fire

A wind arose among the pines; it shook

The clinging music from their boughs, and then
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,
Were heard: O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!

Shelley.

L

FORERUNNERS.

ONG I followed happy guides,

I could never reach their sides;
Their step is forth, and, ere the day,
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Keen my sense, my heart was young,
Right good-will my sinews strung,
But no speed of mine avails
To hunt upon their shining trails.
On and away, their hasting feet
Make the morning proud and sweet;
Flowers they strew, I catch the scent;
Or tone of silver instrument

Leaves on the wind melodious trace;

Yet I could never see their face.

On eastern hills I see their smokes,
Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
I met many travellers

Who the road had surely kept;
They saw not my fine revellers,

These had crossed them while they slept.
Some had heard their fair report,

In the country or the court.

Fleetest couriers alive

Never yet could once arrive,

As they went or they returned,
At the house where these sojourned.
Sometimes their strong speed they slacken,
Though they are not overtaken;

In sleep their jubilant troop is near,

I tuneful voices overhear;

be in wood or waste,

It
may
At unawares 'tis come and past.
Their near camp my spirit knows
By signs gracious as rainbows.
I thenceforward, and long after,
Listen for their harp-like laughter,
And carry in my heart, for days,
Peace that hallows rudest ways.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I

THE FOOT-PATH.

T mounts athwart the windy hill
Through sallow slopes of upland bare.

And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still
Its narrowing curves that end in air.

By day, a warmer-hearted blue

Stoops softly to that topmost swell; Its thread-like windings seem a clew To gracious climes where all is well.

By night, far yonder, I surmise
An ampler world than clips my ken,
Where the great stars of happier skies
Commingle nobler fates of men.

I look and long, then haste me home,
Still master of my secret rare;

Once tried, the path would end in Rome,
But now it leads me everywhere.

Forever to the new it guides,

From former good, old overmuch; What Nature for her poets hides, 'Tis wiser to divine than clutch.

The bird I list hath never come
Within the scope of mortal ear;
My prying step would make him dumb,
And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.

Behind the hill, behind the sky,
Behind my inmost thought, he sings;
No feet avail; to hear it nigh,

The song itself must lend the wings.

Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise Those angel stairways in my brain, That climb from these low-vaulted days To spacious sunshines far from pain.