SWEET day! So cool, so calm, so bright, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; For thou must die. Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses, Thy music shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But, though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives. TO A SKYLARK. Wordsworth. ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! To the last point of vision and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain ("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain; TO THE BRAMBLE-FLOWER. Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing Leave to the nightingale her shady wood,- TO THE BRAMBLE-FLOWER. - Elliot. THY fruit full well the schoolboy knows, So put forth thy small, white rose; Though woodbines flaunt, and roses glow, Thy satin-threaded flowers; For dull the eye, the heart is dull, That cannot feel how fair, Amid all beauty beautiful, Thy tender blossoms are! How delicate thy gauzy frill! How rich thy branchy stem! How soft thy voice, when woods are still, A sweet air lifts the little bough, 175 1*6 LINES WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN. The violet by the mossed gray stone But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring, The fresh, green days of life's fair spring, Scorned bramble of the brake! once more To gad with thee the woodlands o'er, LINES WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN. To whom belongs this valley fair, Wilson. The heavens appear to love this vale; By that blue arch, this beauteous earth, O, that this lovely vale were mine! THE EVENING RAINBOW. There would unto my soul be given, And thoughts would come of mystic mood, And did I ask to whom belonged She spreads her glories o'er the earth, Yea, long as Nature's humblest child Earth's fairest scenes are all his own; THE EVENING RAINBOW.- Southey. eye MILD arch of promise! on the evening sky 178 THE SKYLARK. Such is the smile that piety bestows On the good man's pale cheek, when he in peace, Departing gently from a world of woes, Anticipates the realm where sorrows cease. BOOK OF THE WORLD.- Drummond. Of this fair volume which we "World" do name, We clear might read the art and wisdom rare, tame, His providence, His justice, extending everywhere, which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page, no period of the same! But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold, THE SKYLARK. — Hogg. BIRD of the wilderness, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Blest is thy dwelling-place, O, to abide in the desert with thee! |