SUMMER.

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Summer.

AROUND this lovely valley rise

The purple hills of Paradise.
Oh, softly on yon banks of haze
Her rosy face the summer lays;
Becalmed along the azure sky
The argosies of cloudland lie,

Whose shores with many a shining rift
Far-off their pearl-white peaks uplift.

Through all the long midsummer day
The meadow sides are sweet with hay,
I seek the coolest sheltered seat,
Just where the field and forest meet,
Where grow the pine trees, tall and bland,
The ancient oaks, austere and grand,
And fringy roots and pebbles fret
The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers as they go

Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row;
With even stroke their scythes they swing,
In tune their merry whetstones ring.
Behind, the nimble youngsters run,
And toss the thick swaths in the sun.

The cattle graze; while warm and still
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,
And bright, when summer breezes break,
The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and bumble-bee
Come to the pleasant woods with me ;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail,

High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits.
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells.

The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats his throbbing drum,
The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house;
The oriole flashes by; and look
Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,
Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly,

The down of peace descends on me.
Oh, this is peace! I have no need
Of friend to talk, or book to read;
A dear Companion here abides,
Close to my thrilling heart he hides;
The holy silence is his voice;

I lie, and listen, and rejoice.

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

THE

Sunset.

HE moon is up, and yet it is not night:
Sunset divides the sky with her; a sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli's mountains; heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colors seems to be
Melted to one vast Iris of the west,

Where the day joins the past eternity;

While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest.

A single star is at her side, and reigns

With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still

SPRING.

Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhœtian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaimed her order: - gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,

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Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows,

Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,

Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,

Their magical variety diffuse:

And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains: parting day

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new color as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till 't is gone- and all is gray.

LORD BYRON.

Spring.

HEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,

WH

The mother of months in meadow or plain

Fills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain ;

And the brown bright nightingale amorous

Is half assuaged for Itylus,

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,

The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,

With a noise of winds and many rivers,

With a clamor of waters, and with might;

Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,

Over the splendor and speed of thy feet!

For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,

Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,

Fold our hands round her knees and cling?

O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!

For the stars and the winds are unto her

As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;

For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a traveling foot,
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
And the oat is heard above the lyre,
And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes
The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follow with dancing and fill with delight
The Mænad and the Bassarid;

And soft as lips that laugh and hide,
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
Over her eyebrows shading her eyes;

DAFFODILS.

The wild vine slipping down leaves bare

Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves

To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare,
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

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ALGERNON CHARLES SWINburne.

I

Daffodils.

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering, dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company;

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.