MOUNTAIN SCENE.

103

No more breathes grateful the cool balmy air,
Cheering our search, and urging on our steps
Delightful. See, the languid herds forsake
The burning mead, and creep beneath the shade
Of spreading tree, or sheltering hedge-row tall:
Or, in the mantling pool, rude reservoir

Of wintry rains, and the slow thrifty spring,

Cool their parched limbs, and lave their panting sides.
Let us too seek the shade. Yon airy dome,
Beneath whose lofty battlements we found
A covert passage to these sultry realms,
Invites our drooping strength, and well befriends
The pleasing comment on fair Nature's book,

In sumptuous volume, opened to our view.

'Tis well! Here sheltered from the scorching heat,

At large we view the subject vale sublime
And unimpeded. Hence its limits trace

Stretching, in wanton boundary, from the foot
Of this green mountain, far as human ken
Can reach, a theatre immense! adorned
With ornaments of sweet variety,

By Nature's pencil drawn-the level meads,
A verdant floor! with brightest gems inlaid,

And richly-painted flowers-the tillaged plain,
Wide-waving to the sun a rival blaze

Of gold, best source of wealth!—the prouder hills,
With outline fair, in naked pomp displayed,
Round, angular, oblong; and others crowned
With graceful foliage. Over all her horn
Fair Plenty pours, and cultivation spreads
Her heightening lustre. See, beneath her touch
The smiling harvests rise, with bending line,
And wavy ridge, along the dappled glebe
Stretching their lengthened beds. Her careful hand
Piles up the yellow grain, or rustling hay
Adust for wintry store-the long-ridged mow,
Or shapely pyramid, with conic roof,

Dressing the landscape. She the thick-wove fence
Nurses, and adds with care the hedge-row elm.
Around her farms and villages she plans

The rural garden, yielding wholesome food
Of simple viands, and the fragrant herb
Medicinal. The well-ranged orchard now
She orders, or the sheltering clump, or tuft
Of hardy trees, the wintry storms to curb
Or guard the sweet retreat of village swain,
With health and plenty crowned.

JAGO.

TO A WILD DEER.

105

TO A WILD DEER.

FIT couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee!
Magnificent prison enclosing the free!

With rock wall-encircled-with precipice crowned-
Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound.
'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature doth keep
One bright spot of green for her favorite's sleep;
And close to that covert, as clear as the skies
When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies,
Where the creature at rest can his image behold,
Looking up through the radiance as bright and as

bold!

How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife
With the stir of enjoyment—the spirit of life.
The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake,
Whose depths at the sullen plunge sullenly quake!
Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings,
And away in the midst of his roundelay springs;
'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than

himself,

The wild bee is busy, a musical elf !—

Then starts from his labor, unwearied and gay,
And circling the antlers, booms far, far away.
While high up the mountains, in silence remote,
The cuckoo unseen is repeating his note,

And mellowing Echo, on watch in the skies,
Like a voice from a loftier climate replies.
With wild branching antlers, a guard to his breast,
There lies the wild creature, even stately in rest;
'Mid the grandeur of Nature, composed and serene,
And proud in his heart of the mountainous scene,
He lifts his calm eye to the eagle and raven,

At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven,

As if in his soul the bold animal smiled

To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild.

WILSON.

AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves

run;

To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd and plump the hazel-shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes, whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,