Come, months, come away, from November to May,

In your saddest array;

Follow the bier of the dead cold year,

And, like dim shadows, watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling;

Come, months, come away; put on white, black, and
Let your light sisters play-

Spring:

Up, follow the bier of the dead cold year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

O Spring! of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness,
White-winged emblem! brightest, best, and fairest!
Whence comest thou, when with dark Winter's sadness
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy! thou art the child who wearest

Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet;

Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet
Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.

gray,

A short time before poor KEATS's death, he told an artist-friend that he thought his intensest pleasure in life had been to watch the growth of flowers; and not long before he died, he said, "I feel the flowers growing over me."

"His grave, at Rome, is marked by a little head-stone, on which are carved, somewhat rudely, his name and age, and the epitaph dictated by himself a few days previously

'Here lies one whose name was writ in water,'

No tree or shrub has been planted near it, but the daisies, faithful to their buried lover, crowd his small mound with a galaxy of their innocent stars, more prosperous than those under which he lived."

It is the prerogative of the poet to extract, by the alembic of his mind, beautiful thoughts and images from the minute and common, as well as the more rare and august aspects of nature. Few things

win the poet's love and admiration so deeply as her rich garniture of flowers; for instance, hear Keats's exquisite lines:—

A thing of beauty is a joy forever—

Its loveliness increases, it will never

Pass into nothingness, but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing!
Therefore, on every morrow are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth.

His most renowned poem is the Eve of St. Agnes: here are a few

stanzas:

St. Agnes' eve-ah! bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold;

Numb were the Beadman's fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.

Full on the casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon:

'J. R. Lowell.

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint;
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings for heaven.

A casement high and triple-arched it was,
All garlanded with carven imageries

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,

As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings;

And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,

And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,

A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.

Now let us turn to the pictorial pages of one of our most picturesque poets, WHITTIER, whose "lyre has been struck to many a stirring note for freedom and human progress." We have the highest authority for ascribing to his muse the attributes of "lyric fervour and intensity combined with a tender and graceful fancy."

Our American bard is a true worshipper of Nature, as we see from the following fine passage :

The ocean looketh up to heaven, as 'twere a living thing;
The homage of its waves is given in ceaseless worshipping.
They kneel upon the sloping sand, as bends the human knee,
A beautiful and tireless band, the priesthood of the sea!
They pour the glittering treasures out, which in the deep have birth,
And chant their awful hymns about the watching hills of earth.
The green earth sends its incense up from every mountain-shrine,
From every flower and dewy cup that greeteth the sunshine.
The mists are lifted from the rills, like the white wing of prayer;
They lean above the ancient hills, as doing homage there.