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The birds of air before us fleet,

They cannot brook our shame to meet-
But we may taste your solace sweet

And come again to-morrow.

Ye fearless in your nests abide—

Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, Your silent lessons, undescried

By all but lowly eyes:

For ye could draw th' admiring gaze
Of Him who worlds and hearts surveys:
Your order wild, your fragrant maze,
He taught us how to prize.

Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour,
As when He paused and owned you good,

His blessing on earth's primal bower,

Ye felt it all renewed.

What care ye now, if winter's storm
Sweep ruthless o'er each silken form?
Christ's blessing at your heart is warm,
Ye fear no vexing mood.

Alas! of thousand bosoms kind,

That daily court you and caress,

96

THE QUESTION.

How few the happy secret find

Of your calm loveliness!

"Live for to-day! to-morrow's light
To-morrow's cares shall bring to sight,
Go sleep like closing flowers at night,
And heaven thy morn will bless."

KEBLE.

THE QUESTION.

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odors led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in

dream.

There grew pied windflowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth.

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth

The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that

wets

Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it lears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt

with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light.

And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen

13

98

THE HUSBANDMAN.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!-Oh! to whom?

SHELLEY

THE HUSBANDMAN.

(FROM A LONG POEM ENTITLED "LOCHLEVEN.")

How blest the man, who, in these peaceful plains,
Ploughs his paternal field; far from the noise,
The care and bustle of a busy world!
All in the sacred, sweet, sequestered vale
Of solitude, the secret primrose path

Of rural life he dwells; and with him dwells
Peace and content, twins of the sylvan shade,
And all the graces of the golden age.
Such is Agricola, the wise, the good,

By nature formed for the calm retreat,

The silent path of life. Learned, but not fraught
With self-importance, as the starched fool

Who challenges respect by solemn face,
By studied accent, and high-sounding phrase,
Enamored of the shade, but not morose,
Politeness raised in courts by frigid rules

With him spontaneous grows. Not books alone,
But man his study, and the better part;

To tread the ways of virtue, and to act

The various scenes of life with God's applause.

BRUCE.

HUNTING SONG.

THE heather was blooming, the meadows were

mawn,

Our lads gaed a-hunting ane day at the dawn.
Owre moors and owre mosses and mony a glen
At length they discovered a bonnie moor-hen.

I red you beware at the hunting, young men;
I red you beware at the hunting, young men;
Tak some on the wing, and some as they
spring,

But cannily steal on a bonnie moor-hen.

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