Flowers on its grassy margin sprang,

Flies over its eddying surface played, Birds 'midst the alder-branches sang,

Flocks through the verdant meadows strayed; The weary there lay down to rest, And there the halcyon built her nest.

'Twas beautiful to stand and watch

The fountain's crystal turn to gems,
And from the sky such colors catch
As if 'twere raining diadems;

Yet all was cold and curious art,
That charmed the eye, but missed the heart.

Dearer to me the little stream,

Whose unimprisoned waters run, Wild as the changes of a dream,

By rock and glen, through shade and sun ;

Its lovely links had power to bind

In welcome chains my wandering mind.

So thought I when I saw the face,
By happy portraiture revealed,
Uf one adorned with every grace,

Her name and date from me concealed,

But not her story; she had been

The pride of many a splendid scene.

She cast her glory round a court,

And frolicked in the gayest ring, Where fashion's high-born minions sport Like sparkling fireflies on the wing;

But thence when love had touched her soul,
To nature and to truth she stole.

From din, and pageantry, and strife,

'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains, She treads the paths of lowly life,

Yet in a bosom-circle reigns,

No fountain scattering diamond-showers,
But the sweet streamlet watering flowers.

James Montgomery.

RIPP

THE BIRCH-TREE.

IPPLING through thy branches goes the sunshine,

Among thy leaves that palpitate forever:

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned,

The soul once of some tremulous inland river, Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah! dumb, dumb forever.

While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine,

Holds up its leaves in happy, happy silence,

Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended, — I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands,

And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung silence.

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet,
Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad,

Dripping about thy slim white stem, whose shadow
Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet,
Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge would some
startled Dryad.

Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers;
Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping;
Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience,
And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping
Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping.

Thou art to me like my belovèd maiden,

So frankly coy, so full of trembly confidences;
Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaflets
Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er my senses,
And Nature gives me all her summer confidences.

Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble,
Thou sympathizest still; wild and unquiet,
I fling me down; thy ripple, like a river,
Flows valleyward, where calmness is, and by it
My heart is floated down into the land of quiet.

Lowell

THE MOUNTAIN-ASH.

HE Mountain-ash

THE

No eye can overlook, when 'mid a grove
Of yet unfaded trees she lifts her head

Decked with autumnal berries, that outshine

Spring's richest blossoms; and ye may have marked,

By a brook-side or solitary tarn,

How she her station doth adorn the pool
Glows at her feet, and all the gloomy rocks
Are brightened round her.

Wordsworth.

WH

PAN IMMORTAL.

'HO weeps the death of Pan? Pan is not dead,
But loves the shepherds still; still leads the
fauns

In merry dances o'er the grassy lawns,
To his own pipes; as erst in Greece he led
The sylvan games, what time the god pursued
The beauteous Dryopè. The Naiads still
Haunt the green marge of every mountain rill;
The Dryads sport in every leafy wood;
Pan cannot die till Nature's self decease!
Full oft the reverent worshipper descries
His ruddy face and mischief-glancing eyes
Beneath the branches of old forest-trees
That tower remote from steps of worldly men,
Or hears his laugh far echoing down the glen!

Saxe.

I

WALDEINSAMKEIT.

Do not count the hours I spend

In wandering by the sea;

The forest is my loyal friend,

Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,

Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime,

Or down the oaken glade,

O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone
Fantastic care derides,

But in the serious landscape lone

Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,

And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk in pain.