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HYMN ON SOLITUDE.

*AIL, mildly pleasing solitude,
Companion of the wise and good,
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whispered talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now rapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born;
And while meridian fervors beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening scenes decay,
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.
Descending angels bless thy train,
The virtues of the sage, and swain;
Plain innocence, in white arrayed,
Before thee lifts her fearless head:
Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine :
About thee sports sweet liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell!
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When meditation has her fill,

I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.
JAMES THOMSON.

TO A WILD DEER.

IT couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee!
Magnificent prison inclosing the free!

With rock-wall encircled-with precipice
crowned-

Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound.
'Mid the fern and the heather, kind nature doth keep
One bright spot of green for her favorite's sleep;
And close to that covert, as clear as the skies
When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies,
Where the creature at rest can his image behold,
Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold!
How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife
With the stir of enjoyment-the spirit of life.

The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake, Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake! As if in his soul the bold animal smiled

To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild.

Yes! fierce looks thy nature, e'en hushed in repose-
In the depths of thy desert regardless of foes,
Thy bold antlers call on the hunter afar,
With a haughty defiance to come to the war!
No outrage is war to a creature like thee!
The bugle-horn fills thy wild spirit with glee,
As thou barest thy neck on the wings of the wind,
And the laggardly gaze hound is toiling behind.

In the beams of thy forehead that glitter with death-
In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath—
Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings,
And away in the midst of his roundelay springs;
'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than

himself,

The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf—

Then starts from his labor, unwearied and gay,
And circling his antlers, booms far, far away.
While high up the mountains, in silence remote,
The cuckoo unseen is repeating his note;
The mellowing echo, on watch in the skies,
Like a voice from the loftier climate replies.
With wide-spreading antlers, a guard to his breast,
There lies the wild creature, e'en stately in rest!
'Mid the grandeur of nature, composed and serene,
And proud in his heart of the mountainous scene,
He lifts his calm eye to the eagle and raven,

At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven,
In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar-
In the cliff that, once trod, must be trodden no more
Thy trust, 'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign!
But what if the stag on the mountain,be slain?
On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay,
Like a victor that falls at the close of the day:
While hunter and hound in their terror retreat
From the death that is spurned from his furious feet;
And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies,
As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.
JOHN WILSON.

THE SIERRAS.

IKE fragments of an uncompleted world.
From bleak Alaska, bound in ice and spray,
To where the peaks of Darien lie curled

In clouds, the broken lands loom bold and
gray;

The seamen nearing San Francisco Bay
Forget the compass here; with sturdy hand
They seize the wheel, look up, then bravely lay
The ship to shore by rugged peaks that stand,
The stern and proud patrician fathers of the land.

They stand white stairs of heaven-stand a line Of lifting, endless, and eternal white;

They look upon the far and flashing brine,
Upon the boundless plains, the broken height
Of Kamiakin's battlements. The flight
Of time is underneath their untopped towers;
They seem to push aside the moon at night,
To jostle and to lose the stars. The flowers

Of heaven fall about their brows in shining showers.
They stand a line of lifted snowy isles,
High held above a tossed and tumbled sea-
A sea of wood in wild unmeasured miles;
White pyramids of faith where man is free;
White monuments of hope that yet shall be
The mounts of matchless and immortal song.
I look far down the hollow days; I see

The bearded prophets, simple-souled and strong, That strike the sounding harp and thrill the heeding throng.

Serene and satisfied! supreme! as lone

As God, they loom like God's archangels churled : They look as old as kings upon a throne;

The mantling wings of night are crushed and curled

As feathers curl. The elements are hurled
From off their bosoms, and are bidden go,
Like evil spirits, to an under-world;
They stretch from Cariboo to Mexico,

A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.

UNDER THE LEAVES.

FT have I walked these woodland paths,
Without the blest foreknowing
That underneath the withered leaves
The fairest buds were growing.

To-day the south wind sweeps away
The types of autumn's splendor,
And shows the sweet arbutus flowers,
Spring's children, pure and tender.

O prophet-flowers !—with lips of bloom,
Outvying in your beauty
The pearly tints of ocean shells-
Ye teach me faith and duty!

"Walk life's dark ways," ye seem to say,
With love's divine foreknowing,
That where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees sweet flowers growing."
ALBERT LAIGHTÜN,

TO THE SKYLARK.

JOAQUIN MILLer.

THE SEA BREEZE AND THE SCARF.

UNG on the casement that looked o'er the main,

Fluttered a scarf of blue;

AIL to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art,

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And a gay, bold breeze paused to flatter and And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

tease

This trifle of delicate hue;

"You are lovelier far than the proud skies are,”

He said, with a voice that sighed;

"You are fairer to me than the beautiful sea; Oh, why do you stay here and hide?

"You are wasting your life in this dull, dark room;" And he fondled her silken folds.

"O'er the casement lean but a little, my queen, And see what the great world holds !

How the wonderful blue of your matchless hue, Cheapens both sea and sky!

You are far too bright to be hidden from sight;

Come, fly with me, darling, fly!"

Tender his whisper and sweet his caress,

Flattered and pleased was she,

The arms of her lover lifted her over

The casement out to sea;

Close to his breast she was fondly pressed,

Kissed once by his laughing mouth;
Then dropped to her grave in the cruel wave,
While the wind went whistling south.

ELLA WHEeler Wilcox.

In the golden lightning

Of the setting sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

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Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground'

view;

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged

thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous and fresh and clear thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphant chant,

Matched with thine, would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear, keen joyance

Languor cannot be ;

Shadow of annoyance

Never come near thee:

Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then as I am listening now.

PERCY BYSShe Shelley.

WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING

HEN the hounds of spring are on winter's

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traces,

The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces ⚫
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,

With a noise of winds and many rivers,

With a clamor of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet!
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees and cling?

O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to he
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,

And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

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In the ark was your floodless bed; On the moonless night of Marathon You crawled o'er the mighty dead;

But still, though I reverence your ancestries,
I don't see why you should nibble my peas.
The meadows are yours-the hedgerow and brook,
You may bathe in their dews at morn;

By the aged sea you may sound your shells,
On the mountains erect your horn;

The fruits and the flowers are your rightful dowers,
Then why-in the name of wonder-
Should my six pea-rows be the only cause
To excite your midnight plunder?

I have never disturbed your slender shells;
You have hung round my aged walk;
And each might have sat, till he died in his fat,
Beneath his own cabbage-stalk:

But now you must fly from the soil of your sires;
Then put on your liveliest crawl,

And think of your poor little snails at home,
Now orphans or emigrants all.

Utensils domestic and civil and social

I give you an evening to pack up;

But if the moon of this night does not rise on your

flight,

To-morrow I'll hang each man Jack up.

You'll think of my peas and your thievish tricks, With tears of slime, when crossing the Styx.

B

ALMOND BLOSSOM,

LOSSOM of the almond-trees,
April's gifts to April's bees,
Birthday ornament of spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling ;—
Coming when no flowerets dare
Trust the cruel outer air,
When the royal king-cup bold
Dares not don his coat of gold,
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps his silver for the May;-
Coming when no flowerets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood,
Early violets, blue and white,
Dying for their love of light.

Almond blossom, sent to teach us
That the spring days soon will reach us,
Lest, with longing over-tried,

We die as the violets died-
Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson broidery,
Long before a leaf of green

On the bravest bough is seen-
Ah! when winter winds are swinging
All thy red bells into ringing,
With a bee in every bell,

Almond bloom, we greet thee well!

EDWIN ARNOLD

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OME, let us plant the apple-tree. Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; Wide let its hollow bed be made; There gently lay the roots, and there Sift the dark mould with kindly care, And press it o'er them tenderly, As round the sleeping infant's feet We softly fold the cradle-sheet; So plant we the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;

Boughs where the thrush with crimson breast
Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest;

We plant, upon the sunny lea,
A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer's shower,
When we plant the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad intant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,

While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple-tree.

And when, above this apple-tree,
The winter stars are quivering bright,
And winds go howling through the night,
Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see,
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine
And golden orange of the line,
The fruit of the apple-tree.

The fruitage of this apple-tree
Winds and our flag of stripe and star
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,
Where men shall wonder at the view,
And ask in what fair groves they grew;
And sojourners beyond the sea
Shall think of childhood's careless day
And long, long hours of summer play,
In the shade of the apple-tree.

Each year shall give this apple-tree
A broader flush of roseate bloom,
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.
The years shall come and pass, but we
Shall hear no longer, where we lie,
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,
In the boughs of the apple-tree.

And time shall waste this apple-tree.
O, when its aged branches throw
Thin shadows on the ground below,
Shall fraud and force aud iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still?

What shall the tasks of mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears
Of those who live when length of years

Is wasting this apple-tree?

"Who planted this old apple-tree?" The children of that distant day Thus to some aged man shall say;

And, gazing on its mossy stem,

The gray-haired man shall answer them: "A poet of the land was he,

Born in the rude but good old times;

T is said he made some quaint old rhymes
On planting the apple-tree."

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

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