Field Flowers. YE field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 't is true, Yet, wildings of Nature, I dote upon you, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight, And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight, Like treasures of silver and gold. I love you for lulling me back into dreams, Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams, And of birchen glades breathing their balm, While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote, And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon's note Made music that sweetened the calm. Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find, Even now, what affections the violet awakes! What loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes, Can the wild water-lily restore! What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks, Earth's cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear, Had scathed my existence's bloom ; Once I welcome you more, in life's passionless stage, Life. CAMPBELL. THE Lark has sung his carol in the sky; Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer, The babe, the sleeping image of his sire. A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail The day again, and gladness fill the vale; So soon the child a youth, the youth a man, Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin ; And soon again shall music swell the breeze; And once, alas, nor in a distant hour, He rests in holy earth with them that went before. And such is Human Life; so gliding on, It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone! To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour! ROGERS-[From "Human Life."] To Autumn. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run: Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook, Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; The Cry of the Children. “ Φεῦ, Φεῦ, τι προσδέρκεσθέ μ' ομμασιν, τέκνα.”—MEDEA. KEATS. Do ye I. hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,—— And that cannot stop their tears. |