TO THE DAISY.

Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;

Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;

And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight,

When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
Pleased at his greeting thee again;
Yet nothing daunted,

Nor grieved, if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Be violets in their sacred mews

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;

Proud be the rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;

Thou livest with less ambitious aim,

Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim

The Poet's darling.

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TO THE DAISY.

If to a rock from rains he fly,

Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love, some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy, wrong or right;
Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

And one chance look to thee should turn,

I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds

The common life, our nature breeds;

TO THE DAISY.

A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

Fresh smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest,
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,

To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense,

A happy, genial influence,

Coming one knows not how, nor whence,

Nor whither going.

Child of the Year! that round dost run
Thy pleasant course,-when day's begun

As ready to salute the sun

As lark or leveret,

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Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain ;
Nor be less dear to future men

Than in old time;-thou not in vain

Art Nature's favorite.

WORDSWORTH.

HARVEST.

HERE, 'midst the boldest triumphs of her worth,
Nature herself invites the reapers forth;

Dares the keen sickle from its twelvemonth's rest,
And gives that ardor which in every breast
From infancy to age alike appears,

When the first sheaf its plumy top uprears.

No rake takes here what Heaven to all bestows-
Children of want, for you the bounty flows!

And every cottage from the plenteous store
Receives a burden nightly at its door.

Hark! where the sweeping scythe now rips along,

Each sturdy mower, emulous and strong,
Whose writhing form meridian heat defies,
Bends o'er his work, and every sinew tries;
Prostrates the waving treasure at his feet,
But spares the rising clover, short and sweet.

HARVEST.

Come, Health! come, Jollity! lightfooted, come; Here hold your revels, and make this your home: Each heart awaits and hails you as its own:

Each moistened brow, that scorns to wear a frown.
Th' unpeopled dwelling mourns its tenants strayed;
E'en the domestic laughing dairy maid

Hies to the field, the general toil to share.
Meanwhile the Farmer quits his elbow-chair,
His cool brick floor, his pitcher, and his ease,
And braves the sultry beams, and gladly sees
His gates thrown open, and his team abroad,
The ready group attendant on his word,
To turn the swath, the quiv'ring load to rear,
Or ply the busy rake, the land to clear.
Summer's light garb itself now cumb'rous grown,
Each his thin doublet in the shade throws down;
Where oft the mastiff skulks with half-shut eye,
And rouses at the stranger passing by;
Whilst unrestrained the social converse flows,

And every breast love's powerful impulse knows,
And rival wits with more than rustic grace

Confess the presence of a pretty face.

BLOOMFIELD.

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