WHAT THE WINDS BRING.

WHICH is the wind that brings the cold?
The north-wind, Freddy, and all the snow;
And the sheep will scamper into the fold
When the north begins to blow.

Which is the wind that brings the heat?

The south-wind, Katy; and corn will grow, And peaches redden for you to eat,

When the south begins to blow.

Which is the wind that brings the rain?
The east-wind, Arty; and farmers know
That cows come shivering up the lane
When the east begins to blow.

Which is the wind that brings the flowers?
The west-wind, Bessy; and soft and low
The birdies sing in the summer hours
When the west begins to blow.

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

THE DANCING OF THE AIR.

AND now behold your tender nurse, the air, And common neighbor that aye runs around, How many pictures and impressions fair

Within her empty regions are there found, Which to your senses dancing do propound! For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds, But dancings of the air in sundry kinds?

For when you breathe, the air in order moves,

Now in, now out, in time and measure true;
And when you speak, so well she dancing loves,
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
With thousand forms she doth herself endue:
For all the words that from your lips repair,
Are naught but tricks and turnings of the air.

Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born,
That dances to all voices she can hear :
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn,
Nor any time wherein she will forbear
The airy pavement with her feet to wear :
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth every trick.

And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life,

The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech, Loadstone of fellowship, charming-rod of strife, The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech. With thine own tongue thou trees and stones canst teach,

That, when the air doth dance her finest measure, Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure.

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl in her bloom?
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;
Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of
the sky,

In color though varied, in beauty may vie,
And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye;
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
'Tis the clime of the East; 't is the land of the
Sun,

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?

O, wild as the accents of lover's farewell Are the hearts which they bear and the tales which they tell!

SYRIA.

LORD BYRON.

FROM "PARADISE AND THE PERI."

Now, upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon,
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

To one who looked from upper air
O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!

Among their branches, till at last they stood,
As now they stand, massy and tall and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here, - thou
fill'st

The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summit of these trees
In music; thou art in the cooler breath
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the
ground,

The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship; - nature, here,

In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird

Of his arch-enemy Death,
yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne, the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they out-
lived

The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them; and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.

herbs,

Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak,
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated, - not a prince,

In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

My heart is awed within me when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on, In silence, round me, the perpetual work Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed Forever. Written on thy works I read The lesson of thy own eternity. Lo! all grow old and die; but see again, How on the faltering footsteps of decay Youth presses, ever gay and beautiful youth In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees Wave not less proudly that their ancestors Moulder beneath them. O, there is not lost One of Earth's charms! upon her bosom yet, After the flight of untold centuries, The freshness of her far beginning lies, And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate

With all the waters of the firmament,
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
Its cities, who forgets not, at the sight
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
O, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchainèd elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE PRIMEVAL FOREST.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO "EVANGELINE."

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced

neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ?

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFFLLOW,