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Slow spells his beads monotonous to the soft Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves western wind; His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! he sings again, - his notes are And from the crowded fold, in order, drives

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Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks;

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;
His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain.

From the neighboring school
Come the boys,

With more than their wonted noise
And commotion;

And down the wet streets

Sail their mimic fleets,

Till the treacherous pool

Ingulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.

In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapors that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil. For this rest in the furrow after toil Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,
The farmer sees

His pastures, and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops
Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.

These, and far more than these,
The Poet sees !
He can behold
Aquarius old

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WHO has not dreamed a world of bliss
On a bright sunny noon like this,
Couched by his native brook's green maze,
With comrade of his boyish days,
While all around them seemed to be
Just as in joyous infancy?

Who has not loved at such an hour,
Upon that heath, in birchen bower,
Lulled in the poet's dreamy mood,
Its wild and sunny solitude?
While o'er the waste of purple ling
You mark a sultry glimmering;
Silence herself there seems to sleep,
Wrapped in a slumber long and deep,
Where slowly stray those lonely sheep
Through the tall foxglove's crimson bloom,
And gleaming of the scattered broom.
Love you not, then, to list and hear

The crackling of the gorse-flowers near,
Pouring an orange-scented tide
Of fragrance o'er the desert wide?
To hear the buzzard's whimpering shrill,
Hovering above you high and still?
The twittering of the bird that dwells
Among the heath's delicious bells?
While round your bed, o'er fern and blade,
Insects in green and gold arrayed,
The sun's gay tribes have lightly strayed ;
And sweeter sound their humming wings
Than the proud minstrel's echoing strings.

WILLIAM HOWITT.

SUMMER MOODS.

I LOVE at eventide to walk alone,
Down narrow glens, o'erhung with dewy thorn,
Where, from the long grass underneath, the snail,
Jet black, creeps out, and sprouts his timid horn.
I love to muse o'er meadows newly mown,
Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air;
Where bees search round, with sad and weary
drone,

In vain, for flowers that bloomed but newly there;

While in the juicy corn the hidden quail
Cries, "Wet my foot"; and, hid as thoughts

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1 THE hollow winds begin to blow;

2 The clouds look black, the glass is low, 3 The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, 4 And spiders from their cobwebs peep. 5 Last night the sun went pale to bed, 6 The moon in halos hid her head; 7 The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 8 For see a rainbow spans the sky. 9 The walls are damp, the ditches smell, 10 Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel. 11 Hark how the chairs and tables crack! 12 Old Betty's nerves are on the rack; 13 Loud quacks the duck, the peacocks cry, 14 The distant hills are seeming nigh. 15 How restless are the snorting swine! 16 The busy flies disturb the kine;

17 Low o'er the grass the swallow wings, 18 The cricket, too, how sharp he sings, 19 Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws, 20 Sits wiping o'er her whiskered jaws, 21 Through the clear streams the fishes rise, 22 And nimbly catch the incautious flies. 23 The glow-worms, numerous and light, 24 Illumed the dewy dell last night, 25 At dusk the squalid toad was seen, 26 Hopping and crawling o'er the green, 27 The whirling dust the wind obeys, 28 And in the rapid eddy plays; 29 The frog has changed his yellow vest, 30 And in a russet coat is dressed. 31 Though June, the air is cold and still, 32 The mellow black bird's voice is shrill ; 33 My dog, so altered in his taste, 34 Quits mutton-bones on grass to feast; 35 And see yon rooks, how odd their flight, 36 They imitate the gliding kite, 37 And seem precipitate to fall, 38 As if they felt the piercing ball. 39 'T will surely rain; I see with sorrow, 40 Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.

SUMMER STORM.

ANONYMOUS

UNTREMULOUS in the river clear, Toward the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge; So still the air that I can hear The slender clarion of the unseen midge;

Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases, Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases, The huddling trample of a drove of sheep Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases In dust on the other side; life's emblem deep, A confused noise between two silences, Finding at last in dust precarious peace. On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grasses Soak up the sunshine; sleeps the brimming

tide

Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passes Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide Wavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side;

But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge,

Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened

spray;

Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge, And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway

Suddenly all the sky is hid

As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow,

Down the pane they are crookedly crawling,
And the wind breathes low;

Slowly the circles widen on the river,
Widen and mingle, one and all;
Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,
Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter,
The wind is gathering in the west;
The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter,
Then droop to a fitful rest;
Up from the stream with sluggish flap
Struggles the gull and floats away;
Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,

We shall not see the sun go down to-day:
Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh,

And tramples the grass with terrified feet, The startled river turns leaden and harsh, You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.

Look! look! that livid flash!
And instantly follows the rattling thunder,
As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,
On the Earth, which crouches in silence under;
And now a solid gray wall of rain
Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile;

For a breath's space I see the blue wood again,

And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof,

Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore, The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling, Will silence return nevermore?

Hush! Still as death,

The tempest holds his breath
As from a sudden will;

The rain stops short, but from the eaves
You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves,

All is so bodingly still;
Again, now, now, again
Plashes the rain in heavy gouts,

The crinkled lightning
Seems ever brightening,
And loud and long
Again the thunder shouts

His battle-song,
One quivering flash,
One wildering crash,

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How fine has the day been! how bright was the sun! How lovely and joyful the course that he run, Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun,

And there followed some droppings of rain! But now the fair traveller's come to the west, His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best :

He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest,

And foretells a bright rising again.

Just such is the Christian; his course he begins, Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins, And melts into tears; then he breaks out and shines,

And travels his heavenly way:

But when he comes nearer to finish his race, Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace, And gives a sure hope, at the end of his days, Of rising in brighter array.

ISAAC WATTS.

MOONLIGHT IN SUMMER.

Low on the utmost boundary of the sight,
The rising vapors catch the silver light;
Thence fancy measures, as they parting fly,
Which first will throw its shadow on the eye,
Passing the source of light; and thence away,
Succeeded quick by brighter still than they.
For yet above these wafted clouds are seen
(In a remoter sky still more serene)
Others, detached in ranges through the air,
Spotless as snow, and countless as they're fair;
Scattered immensely wide from east to west,
The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest.
These, to the raptured mind, aloud proclaim
Their mighty Shepherd's everlasting name;

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