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Ah! thou would'st pause awhile in gentle Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art

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Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry, evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door;
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage; nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the

world

Is all his own, retiring as he were not,

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

WINTER SONG.

SUMMER joys are o 'er;

Flowerets bloom no more,
Wintry winds are sweeping;
Through the snow-drifts, peeping.
Cheerful evergreen
Rarely now is seen.

Now no plumed throng
Charms the wood with song;
Ice-bound trees are glittering;
Merry snow-birds, twittering,
Fondly strive to cheer
Scenes so cold and drear.

Winter, still I see

Many charms in thee-
Love thy chilly greeting,
Snow-storms fiercely beating,

And the dear delights
Of the long, long nights.

LUDWIG HOLTY, (German.)

Translation of C. T. BROOKS.

SONNET

TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LAAKEN IN THE WINTER.

O MELANCHOLY bird, a winter's day

Thou standest by the margin of the pool, And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school

To patience, which all evil can allay.
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey,

And given thyself a lesson to the fool
Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,
And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
There need not schools nor the professor's

chair,

Though these be good, true wisdom to impart :

He who has not enough for these to spare,

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SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours

Of winters past or coming, void of care.
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling
flowers-

To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers

Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare, A stain to human sense in sin that lowers. What soul can be so sick which by thy songs (Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,

And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven!

Sweet, artless songster! thou my mind dost

raise

To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.

THE day is ending
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,

The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences

Mark no longer

The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds

To the dismal knell;
Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within

Like a funeral bell.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

A SONG FOR THE SEASONS.
WHEN the merry lark doth gild

With his song the summer hours,
And their nests the swallows build
In the roofs and tops of towers,
And the golden broom-flower burns
All about the waste,
And the maiden May returns
With a pretty haste,-

Then, how merry are the times!
The Summer times! the Spring times i

Now, from off the ashy stone
The chilly midnight cricket crieth,
And all merry birds are flown,

And our dream of pleasure dieth;
Now the once blue, laughing sky
Saddens into gray,
And the frozen rivers sigh,
Pining all away!

Now, how solemn are the times!
The Winter times! the Night times!

Yet, be merry: all around

Is through one vast change revolving:
Even Night, who lately frowned,

Is in paler dawn dissolving.
Earth will burst her fetters strange,

And in Spring grow free;

All things in the world will change,
Save-my love for thee!

Sing then, hopeful are all times!
Winter, Summer, Spring times!

BARRY CORNWALL.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry Hours, smile instead,

For the Year is but asleep:
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse

In its coffin in the clay,
So white Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold Year to-day;
Solemn Hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild, Trembling Hours; she will arise With new love within her eyes.

January gray is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier;

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O ye Hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

THE SKATERS' SONG.

THIS bleak and frosty morning,
All thoughts of danger scorning,
Our spirits brightly flow;
We're all in a glow,
Through the sparkling snow
While a-skating we go:

With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la,
To the sound of the merry horn.

Great Jove looks on us smiling,
Who thus the time beguiling,
Through the waters we sail;
Still we row on our keel;
Our weapons are steel,
And no danger we feel:
With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la,
To the sound of the merry horn.

From right to left we're plying;
Swifter than winds we 're flying-
Spheres on spheres surrounding,
Health and strength abounding.
In circles we sleep;
Our poise still we keep;
Behold how we sweep
The face of the deep:

With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la,
To the sound of the merry horn.

See! see our train advances!
See how each skater lances!
Health and strength abounding,
While horns and oboes sounding;
The Tritons shall blow
Their conch-shells below,
And their beards fear to show,
While a-skating we go:

With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la,
To the sound of the merry horn.

ANONYMOUS.

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND YOUTH.

WISDOM and Spirit of the universe!

Thou Soul, that art the eternity of thought!
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul—
Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man,
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With Life and Nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear,-until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer

nights,

When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went

HYMN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

In solitude, such intercourse was mine.

Mine was it in the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the Summer long;
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight
blazed,

I heeded not the summons. Happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village-clock tolled six; I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with
steel,

We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding
horn,

The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle. With the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound

Of melancholy, not unnoticed; while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west

The orange sky of evening died away.

Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively

HYMN

119

BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI,

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems tc pause

On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black—
An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal
shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer

I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with
my thought-

Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy-
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing—there,

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous As in her natural form, swelled vast to

throng,

To cut across the reflex of a star

Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain. And oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spin-
ning still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the Earth had
rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler; and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart,

awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the

vale!

O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they
sink-

Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald-wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

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