Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place, Oh to abide in the desert with thee! HOGG. SUNRISE. I MARVEL not, O Sun! that unto thee In adoration man should bow the knee, And pour his prayers of mingled awe and love; For like a God thou art, and on thy way Of glory sheddest with benignant ray, Beauty, and life, and joyance from above. No longer let these mists thy radiance shroud, These cold raw mists that chill the comfortless day, But shed thy splendor through the opening cloud, And cheer the earth once more. The languid flowers Lie odorless, bent down with heavy rain, Earth asks thy presence, saturate with showers! O lord of light! put forth thy beams again, For damp and cheerless are the gloomy hours. SOUTHEY. THE GREEN PASTURES. 3 37 THE GREEN PASTURES. I WALKED in a field of fresh clover this morn, And under the hedge ran a clear water-brook, That I thought little lambs must be happy all day. And when I remember the beautiful psalm, That tells about Christ and his pastures so green; I know He is willing to make me his lamb, And happier far than the lambs I have seen. If I drink of the waters, so peaceful and still, The lambs are at peace in the fields when they play, I try to walk always, with Christ for my friend. M. L. DUNCAN. 38 THE CUCKOO. THE LARK. Lo, hear the gentle Lark, weary of rest, And wakes the morning from whose silver breast Who does the world so gloriously behold, The cedar tops and hills seem burnished gold. SHAKSPEARE. THE CUCKOO. WHENCE is the magic pleasure of the sound? Or bush, near which we stood, when on the ear And yet again came down the budding vale? But, there, the stranger flies close to the ground, THE BLACKBIRD. The sooty-plumed hedge-sparrow frequent acts The youngling, destined to supplant her own. GRAHAME. 39 THE BLACKBIRD WHEN snowdrops die, and the green primrose leaves Announce the coming flower, the Merle's note, 40 THE BLACKBIRD. His jetty breast embrowned; the rounded clay While he, upon a neighboring tree, his lay, More richly full, melodiously renews. When twice seven days have run, the moment snatch, That she has flitted off her charge, to cool Of eve, when, nestling o'er her brood, the dam GRAHAME. |