THE GREENWOOD.

WHEN 'tis summer weather,

fairy sound, The waters clear is humming round,

And the cuckoo sings unseen, And the leaves are waving

green

O, then 't is sweet,

In some retreat,

To hear the murmuring dove, With those whom on earth alone we love,

wood together.

But when 't is winter weather,

And crosses grieve,

And friends deceive,

And rain and sleet
The lattice beat-

O, then 't is sweet
To sit and sing

Of the friends with whom, in the days of spring, We roamed through the greenwood together. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

THANATOPSIS.

O him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speals
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

In majesty, and the complaining brooks,

That make the meadows green; and, poured round a

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings-yet the dead are there!
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sieep-the dead reign there alone!
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men-
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off-
Shall one by one, be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

O where the rosy-bosomed hours,
Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of spring : While, whispering pleasure as they fly, Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky, Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beach
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think

¡At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of care:

The panting herds repose:

Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honeyed spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick glancing to the sun.

To contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man :

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter through life's little day,

In fortune's varying colors drest;
Brushed by the hand of rough mischance;
Or chilled by age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low

The sportive kind reply;

Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,

That should have come to make the meadows fair. "Their sweet South left too soon, among the trees The birds, bewildered, flutter to and fro; For them no green boughs wait-their memories Of last year's April had deceived them so."

She watched the homeless birds, the slow, sad spring,

The barren fields, and shivering, naked trees. "Thus God has dealt with me, his child," she said: "I wait my spring-time, and am cold like these. "To them will come the fulness of their time;

Their spring, though late, will make the meadows fair;

Shall I, who wait like them, like them be blessed? I am His own-doth not my Father care?" LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES.

'HE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them-ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems—in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences,
That, from the stilly twilight of the place,

And from the gray old trunks, that, high in heaven,
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why

Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect

God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

That our frail hands have raised! Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in his ear.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

IN JUNE.

O sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing,
So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see;
So blithe and gay the humming-bird agoing
From flower to flower, a hunting with the
bee.

So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes,
The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere;

So sweet the water's song through reeds and rushes,
The plover's piping note, now here, now there.

So sweet, so sweet from off the fields of clover,

The west-wind blowing, blowing up the hill;
So sweet, so sweet with news of some one's lover,
Fleet footsteps, ringing nearer, nearer still.

So near, so near, now listen, listen, thrushes;

Now plover, blackbird, cease, and let me hear; And, water, hush your song through reeds and rushes,

That I may know whose lover cometh near.

So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling,
Plover or blackbird never heeding me;

So loud the mill-stream too kept fretting, falling,
O'er bar and bank, in brawling, boisterous glee.

So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush, nor plover,
Nor noisy mill stream, in its fret and fall,
Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover,
My lover calling through the thrushes' call.

"Come down, come down!" he called, and straight the thrushes

From mate to mate sang all at once, "Come down!" And while the water laughed through reeds and rushes, The blackbird chirped, the plover piped, "Come down!"

Then down and off, and through the fields of clover,
I followed, followed, at my lover's call;
Listening no more to blackbird, thrush, or plover,
The water's laugh, the mill-stream's fret and fall.
NORA PERRY.

MAY-EVE, OR KATE OF ABERDEEN

HE silver moon's enamoured beam

Steals softly through the night, To wanton with the winding stream, And kiss reflected light.

To beds of state go, balmy sleep

('Tis where you've seldom been), May's vigil while the shepherds keep With Kate of Aberdeen.

Upon the green the virgins wait,
In rosy chaplets gay,

Till morn unbars her golden gate,
And gives the promised May.

Methinks I hear the maids deciare,
The promised May, when seen,
Not half so fragrant, half so fair,
As Kate of Aberdeen.

Strike up the tabor's boldest notes,
We ll rouse the nodding grove;
The nested birds shall raise their throats,
And hail the maid I love.
And see-the matin lark mistakes,

He quits the tufted green: Fond bird! 'tis not the morning breaks. 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen.

Now lightsome o'er the level mead,
Where midnight fairies rove,
Like them the jocund dance we'll lead,
Or tune the reed to love:

For see, the rosy May draws nigh;
She claims a virgin queen;
And hark! the happy shepherds cry,
"Tis Kate of Aberdeen.

MARCH

JOHN CUNNINGHAM.

'HE stormy March is come at last,
With wind, and cloud, and changing skie
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.

Ah! passing few are they who speak,
Wild, stormy month. in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.

For thou to northern lands again,

The glad and glorious sun dost bring. And thou hast joined the gentle train, And wear'st the gentle name of Spring. And, in thy reign of blast and storm,

Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day,
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And heaven puts on the blue of May.
Then sing aloud the gushing rills

And the full springs, from frost set free,
That, brightly leaping down the hills,
Are just set out to meet the sea.
The years departing beauty hides

Of wintry storms the sullen threat.
But in thy sternest frown abides

A look of kindly promise yet.

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYAN".