FLOWERS.

ERE yet our course was graced with social

trees

It lacked not old remains of hawthorn

bowers,

mours;

Where small birds warbled to their para[bees; And, earlier still, was heard the hum of I saw them ply their harmless robberies, And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers,

Fed by the stream with soft perpetual showers,

Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze. There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness;

The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue, [even; The thyme her purple, like the blush of And, if the breath of some to no caress Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view, All kinds alike seemed favourites of heaven.

:0:

311

HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 1785-1806.

TO THE INFINITE ONE.

WHAT art thou, Mighty One, and where thy seat?

Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands;

And thou dost bear within thine awful hands

The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.

Stern on thy dark wrought car of cloud and wind,

Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dread noon,

Or on the red wing of the fierce mon

soon

Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind. In the drear silence of the polar span

Dost thou repose? or in the solitude Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?

Vain thought, the confines of His throne to trace

Who glows through all the fields of boundless space!

JOHN KEATS.

1795-1812.

THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET.

THE poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

[run

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:

That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead

In summer luxury,-he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun,

[weed. He rests at ease beneath some pleasant

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills [ever,

The cricket's song, in warmth increasing And seems to one, in drowsiness half lost, [hills. The grasshopper's among some grassy

:0:

:0:

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. 1772-1834. SONNET.

THOU gentle look, that didst my soul beguile,

Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream

Revisit my sad heart, auspicious smile! As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam; What time in sickly mood, at parting day, I lay me down and think of happier years, Of joys that glimmered in Hope's twilight

ray,

Then left me, darkling, in a vale of tears. O pleasant days of Hope-for ever flown! Could I recall you!-but that thought is vain.

Availeth not persuasion's sweetest tone To lure the fleet-winged travellers back again;

Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam,

Like a bright rainbow on an evening stream,

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

1796-1849.

THE DREAM OF LOVE.

IT must be so-my infant love must find
In my own heart a cradle and a grave;
Like a rich jewel hid beneath the wave,-
Or rebel spirit bound within the rind
Of some old wreathed oak, or fast enshrined
In the cold durance of an echoing cave.-
Yet better thus than cold disdain to brave;
Or worse, to taint the quiet of that mind
That decks its temple with unearthly grace.
Together must we dwell, my dream and I—
Unknown then live, and unlamented die,
Rather than dim the lustre of that face,
Or drive the laughing dimple from its place,
Or heave that white breast with a painful
sigh.

LEIGH HUNT.

1784-1859.

AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE.

How sweet it were, if without feeble fright, Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight, An angel came to us, and we could bear To see him issue from the silent air

At evening in our room, and bend on ours His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers

News of dear friends, and children who have never

Been dead indeed-as we shall know for

ever.

Alas! we think not what we daily see About our hearths-angels that are to be, Or may be, if they will, and we prepare Their souls and ours to meet in happy airA child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings

In unison with ours, breeding its future wings.

:0:

Of Earth and her green family, doth make
In air redemption and soft gloryings.
The world, as though inspired, erectly flings
Its shadowy coronals away, to slake
A holy thirst for light; and one by one
The enamoured hills-with many a startled
dell,

Fountain and forest-blush before the sun!
Voices and wings are up, and waters swell;
And flowers, like clustered shepherds, have
begun

To ope their fragrant mouths, and heavenly tidings tell.

EVENING.

ALREADY hath the day grown grey with [crowned,

age; And in the west, like to a conqueror Is faint with too much glory, on the ground He flings his dazzling arms; and as a sage Prepares him for a cloud-hung hermitage, Where meditation meets him at the door; And all around-on wall, and roof, and floor

Some pensive star unfoldsits silver page Of truth, which God's own hand hath testified.

Sweet eve! whom poets sing to as a bride, Queen of the quiet-Eden of time's bright map

Thy look allures me from my hushed fireside,

[tap,

And sharp leaves rustling at my casement And beckon forth my mind to dream upon thy lap.

313

Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest trees, [pass

To show, above, the unwasted stars that In their old glory. O thou God of old! Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;

But so much patience, as a blade of grass Grows by contented through the heat and cold.

LOVE.

I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wishedfor years, [pears Who each one, in a gracious hand, apTo bear a gift for mortals old and young; And as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw a gradual vision through my tears; The sweet sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung ['ware,

A shadow across me. Straightway I was So weeping, how a mystic shape did move Behind me, and drew me backwards by the hair,

And a voice said in mastery while I strove, "Guess now who holds thee?" "Death,'

I said; but there

"

The silver answer rang-"Not Death, but Love."

:0:

LORD LYTTON. (OWEN MEREDITH.)

ALREADY evening; in the duskiest nook Of yon dusk corner, under the Death's [legended

head, Between the alembics, thrust this And iron-bound and melancholy book; For I will read no longer. The loud brook Shelves his sharp light up shallow banks thin-spread; [and red; The slumb'rous west grows slowly red Up from the ripened corn her silver hook The moon is lifting; and deliciously Along the warm blue hills the day declines. The first star brightens while she waits [grows tight:

for me, And round her swelling heart the zone Musing, half sad, in her soft hair she twines The white rose, whispering, "He will come to-night."