The Evening Wind Nor I alone,-a thousand bosoms round Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest; Curl the still waters, bright with stars; and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast. Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. 24 Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly śway Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown; Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men, And gone into the boundless heaven again. The faint old man shall lean his silver head 32 And dry the moistened curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed, Go-but the circle of eternal change, Which is the life of nature, shall restore, With sounds and sense from all thy mighty range, 40 Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the homesick mariner of the shore; And, listening to the murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream. 48 1830. William Cullen Bryant. THE MIDGES DANCE ABOON THE BURN THE midges dance aboon the burn; The pairtricks down the rushy holm Set up their e'ening ca'. Now loud and clear the blackbird's sang Rings through the briery shaw, While, flitting gay, the swallows play 8 Flowers Beneath the golden gloamin' sky The redbreast pours his sweetest strains While weary yeldrins seem to wail The roses fauld their silken leaves, Of mirth and revelry, The simple joys that nature yields 16 24 1807? Robert Tannahill. FLOWERS I WILL not have the mad Clytie, The pea is but a wanton witch, And clasps her rings on every hand; That always mourns the dead; With her cheeks of tender red. 16 The lily is all in white, like a saint, And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush, Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, And the broom 's betrothed to the bee;But I will plight with the dainty rose, For fairest of all is she. 1827. 24 Thomas Hood. SONG A SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers: Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 13 The Throstle The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, An hour before death; My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year's last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 1830. Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 24 Lord Tennyson. THE THROSTLE "SUMMER is coming, summer is coming. I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love again," Yes, my wild little Poet. Sing the new year in under the blue. Last year you sang it as gladly. "New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new That you should carol so madly? “Love again, song again, nest again, young again," Never a prophet so crazy! And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, See, there is hardly a daisy. 12 |