LOCH-NA-GARR.

133. LOCH-NA-GARR.

157

AWAY, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains,

Round their white summits though elements war; Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth flowing fountains,

I sigh for the valley of dark Loch-na-Garr.

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd;
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains long perish'd my memory ponder'd,
As daily I strode through the pine-covered glade.
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story,

Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch-na-Garr.
BYRON.

134. CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER.

GOD that madest earth and heaven,

Darkness and light!

Who the day for toil hast given,
For rest the night!

May thine angel-guards defend us,
Slumber sweet thy mercy send us,
Holy dreams and hopes attend us,
This livelong night!

HEBER.

158

A MAY MORNING.

135. A MAY MORNING.

O LADY, leave thy silken thread
And flowery tapestrie :
There's living roses on the bush,
And blossoms on the tree;
Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand
Some random bud will meet;
Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find
The daisy at thy feet.

"Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was here in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume;

There's crimson buds, and white, and blue—
The very rainbow showers

Have turned to blossoms where they fell,

And sown the earth with flowers.

There's fairy tulips in the east,

The garden of the sun;

The very streams reflect the hues
And blossoms as they run :

While Morn opes like a crimson rose,
Still wet with pearly showers;

Then, lady, leave the silken thread

Thou twinest into flowers.

HOOD.

FLOWERS.

136. FIELD FLOWERS.

SWEET nurslings of the vernal skies,
Bath'd in soft airs and fed with dew,
What more than magic in you lies,
To fill the heart's fond view!
In childhood's sports, companions gay;
In sorrow, on life's downward way,
How soothing! In our last decay,
Memorials prompt and true.

KEBLE

159

137. AUTUMN FLOWERS.

GEMS of the changing autumn, how beautiful ye are ! Shining from your glossy stems like many a golden star; Peeping through the long grass, smiling on the down, Lighting up the dusky bank, just where the sun goes down;

Yellow flowers of autumn, how beautiful ye are, Shining from your glossy stems like many a golden star!

CAMPBELL.

138. FLOWERS, AND THEIR SPEECH.

FAR from the hum and noisy toil

Of a city's endless strife,

The flowers, with gentle pathos, speak

Of a holier, happier life.

ELLEN OZIER.

160

GOD THE INFINITE ARTIST.

139. GOD THE INFINITE ARTIST.

Not a flower

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains, as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth:
Happy who walks with Him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent, in fruit or flower,
Of what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.

COWPER.

139*

WHO can paint

Like Nature? Can Imagination boast,

Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lay them on so delicately fine,
And lose them in each other, as appears

In every bud that blows?

THOMSON.

140. MUSIC AND DEVOTION.

DEVOTION borrows music's tone,
And music takes devotion's wing;
And, like the bird that hails the sun,
They soar to heaven, and soaring, sing.

ANON.

SCENES OF CHILDHOOD.

141. SCENES OF CHILDHOOD.

АH! happy hills, ah! pleasing shade,
Ah! fields beloved in vain,

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain.

I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving forth their gladsome wing
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To become a second spring.

161

GRAY.

142. THE SPRING JOURNEY.

Он, green was the corn, as I rode on my way,
And bright were the dews on the blossoms of May,
And dark was the sycamore's shade to behold,
And the oak's tender leaf was of em'rald and gold.
The thrush from his holly, the lark from his cloud,
Their chorus of rapture sung jovial and loud;
From the soft vernal sky to the soft grassy ground,
There was beauty above me, beneath, and around.
The mild southern breeze brought a shower from the
hill,

And yet, though it left me all dripping aad chill,
I felt a new pleasure, as onward I sped,

To gaze where the rainbow gleamed broad over head.

Oh, such is life's journey, and such be our skill,
To lose in its blessings the sense of its ill;
Through sunshine and shower may our progress be even,
And our tears add a charm to the prospect of Heaven!

HEBER.