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MAY.

My love, to hear, and recompense my love.
Fair king, who all preserves,
But show thy blushing beams,

And thou two sweeter eyes

Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams
Did once thy heart surprise:
Nay, suns, which shine as clear

As thou when two thou didst to Rome appear.
Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise.

If that ye winds would hear

A voice surpassing, far, Amphion's lyre,
Your furious chiding stay;

Let Zephyr only breathe,

And with her tresses play,

Kissing sometimes those purple ports of death.
The winds all silent are,
And Phoebus in his chair
Ensaffroning sea and air,
Makes vanish every star:
Night like a drunkard reels

Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels. The fields with flowers are decked in every hue,

The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue:

Here is the pleasant place,

And nothing wanting is, save she, alas!

MAY.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

I FEEL a newer life in every gale;

The winds, that fan the flowers,

And with their welcome breathings fill the sail,

Tell of serener hours,

Of hours that glide unfelt away

Beneath the sky of May.

The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls

From his blue throne of air,

And where his whispering voice in music falls,
Beauty is budding there;

The bright ones of the valley break
Their slumbers, and awake.

The waving verdure rolls along the plain,

And the wide forest weaves,

To welcome back its playful mates again, A canopy of leaves;

And from its darkening shadow floats A gush of trembling notes.

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Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May; The tresses of the woods

With the light dallying of the west-wind play;

And the full-brimming floods, As gladly to their goal they run, Hail the returning sun.

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

SONG TO MAY.

MAY! queen of blossoms,

And fulfilling flowers,

With what pretty music

Shall we charm the hours? Wilt thou have pipe and reed, Blown in the open mead?

Or to the lute give heed

In the green bowers?

Thou hast no need of us,

Or pipe or wire, That hast the golden bee Ripened with fire; And many thousand more Songsters, that thee adore, Filling earth's grassy floor

With new desire.

Thou hast thy mighty herds,

Tame, and free livers; Doubt not, thy music too

In the deep rivers; And the whole plumy flight, Warbling the day and nightUp at the gates of light, See, the lark quivers!

When with the jacinth

Coy fountains are tressed; And for the mournful bird

Greenwoods are dressed, That did for Tereus pine; Then shall our songs be thine, To whom our hearts incline:

May, be thou blessed!

LORD THUELOW

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Of war and fair women

EARLY SUMMER.

The young knights are dreaming,
With bright breastplates gleaming,
And plumed helmets on;
The barbed steed neighs lordly,
And shakes his mane proudly,
For war-trumpets loudly
Say night is nigh gone.

I see the flags flowing,
The warriors all glowing,
And, snorting and blowing,

The steeds rushing on;

The lances are crashing,
Out broad blades come flashing

Mid shouting and dashing-
The night is nigh gone.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY.

MORNING IN LONDON.

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:

This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples
lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky,

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THEY COME! THE MERRY SUMMER MONTHS.

THEY Come! the merry summer months of beauty, song, and flowers;

They come! the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers.

Up, up, my heart! and walk abroad; fling cark and care aside;

Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peace ful waters glide;

Or, underneath the shadow vast of patri archal tree,

Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquility.

The grass is soft, its velvet touch is grateful to the hand;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. And, like the kiss of maiden love, the breeze

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God bless them all, those little ones, who, far And winking Mary-buds begin
above this earth,
To ope their golden eyes;

Can make a scoff of its mean joys, and vent With every thing that pretty bin,
a nobler mirth.

But soft! mine ear upcaught a sound,—from

yonder wood it came!

The spirit of the dim green glade did breathe

his own glad name;—

Yes, it is he! the hermit bird, that, apart from all his kind,

Slow spells his beads monotonous to the soft western wind;

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! he sings again,—his notes

are void of art;

My lady sweet, arise;
Arise, arise!

SHAKESPEARE.

TO THE SKYLARK.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

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

But simplest strains do soonest sound the In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

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Wandered through greenwoods all day long, Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

a mighty heart of joy!

I'm sadder now-I have had cause; but O!
I'm proud to think

That each pure joy-fount, loved of yore, I yet
delight to drink ;-

Leaf, blossom, blade, hill, valley, stream, the calm, unclouded sky,

Still mingle music with my dreams, as in the

days gone by.

When summer's loveliness and light fall round

me dark and cold,

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,

I'll bear indeed life's heaviest curse,—a heart Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

that hath waxed old!

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