THE DRYADS.

Shaking their choral locks; and on the place
There fell a shade, as on an awe-struck face;
And overhead, like a portentous rim

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Pulled over the wide world, to make all dim,
A grave, gigantic cloud came hugely uplifting him.

It passed with its slow shadow; and I saw
Where it went down beyond me on a plain,
Sloping its dusky ladders of thick rain;
And on the mist it made, and blinding awe,
The sun, reissuing in the opposite sky,
Struck the all-colored arch of his great eye,
And the disburdened country laughed again,
The leaves were amber; the sunshine
Scored on the ground its conquering line;
And the quick birds, for scorn of the great cloud,
Like children after fear, were merry and loud.

THE DRYADS.- Leigh Hunt.

THESE are the tawny Dryads, who love nooks
In the dry depth of oaks;

Or feel the air in groves, or pull green dresses
For their glad heads in rooty wildernesses;
Or on the gold turf, o'er the dark lines
Which the sun makes when he declines,
Bend their linked dances in and out the pines.
They tend all forests old, and meeting trees,
Wood, copse, or queach, or slippery dell o'erhung
With firs, and with their dusty apples strewn;
And let the visiting beams the boughs among,
And bless the trunks from clingings of disease
And wasted hearts that to the night-wind groan.

They screen the cuckoo when he sings; and teach The mother blackbird how to lead astray

The informed spirit of the foolish boy

From thick to thick, from hedge to bay or beach,
When he would steal the huddled nest away
Of yellow bills upgaping for their food,
And spoil the song of the free solitude.
And they, at sound of the brute, insolent horn,
Hurry the deer out of the dewy morn;
And take into their sudden laps with joy
The startled hare that did but peep abroad;
And from the trodden road

Help the bruised hedgehog. And at rest, they love

The back-turned pheasant, hanging from the tree His sunny drapery ;

And handy squirrel, nibbling hastily ;

And fragrant hiving bee,

So happy that he will not move, not he,

Without a song; and hidden, loving dove,

With his deep breath; and bird of wakeful glen,
Whose louder song is like the voice of life,
Triumphant o'er death's image, but whose déep,
Low, lovelier note is like a gentle wife,
A poor, a pensive, yet a happy one,

Stealing, when daylight's common tasks are done,
An hour for mother's work, and singing low
While her tired husband and her children sleep.

MAN.

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MAN. Herbert.

My God, I heard this day,

That none doth build a stately habitation,
But he that means to dwell therein.

What house more stately hath there been,
Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation
All things are in decay.

For Man is every thing,

And more. He is a tree, yet bears no fruit ;
A beast, yet is, or should be, more.
Reason and speech we only bring.
Parrots may thank us, if they are not mute;
They go upon the score.

Man is all symmetry,

Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides.

Each part may call the farthest brother:
For head with foot hath private amity;
And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so far,

But Man hath caught and kept it, as his prey.
His eyes dismount the highest star;

He is, in little, all the sphere.

Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.

For us the winds do blow,

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains

flow.
A 2

Nothing we see but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure;
The whole is either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed

Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws
Music and light attend our head.

All things unto our flesh are kind,
In their descent and being; to our mind,
In their ascent and cause.

Each thing is full of duty: Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation;

Below, our drink; above, our meat; Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty? Then how all things are neat!

More servants wait on Man

Than he'll take notice of. In every path
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
O, mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.

Since, then, my God, thou hast So brave a palace built, O, dwell in it, That it may dwell with thee at last! Till then, afford us so much wit,

That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee; And both thy servants be.

TO A SKYLARK.

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TO A SKYLARK.- Shelley.

HAIL 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 singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken 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.