From the place I stood in floated
Back the covert dim and close,

And the open ground was coated

Carpet-smooth with grass and moss,

And the blue-bell's purple presence signed it worthily across.

Here a linden-tree stood brightening

All adown its silver rind;

For as some trees draw the lightning,

So this tree, unto my mind,

Drew to earth the blessed sunshine, from the sky where it was shrined.

Tall the linden-tree, and near it
An old hawthorn also grew;

And wood-ivy, like a spirit,

Hovered dimly round the two,

Shaping thence that bower of beauty, which I sing of thus to you,

'Twas a bower for garden fitter

Than for any woodland wide!
Though a fresh and dewy glitter

Struck it through, from side to side,

Shaped and shaven was the freshness, as by garden-cunning plied.

Oh, a lady might have come there,

Hooded fairly, like her hawk,
With a book or lute in summer,

And a hope of sweeter talk

Listening less to her own music, than for footsteps on the walk.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

MIST OF THE MOUNTAIN-TOP.

Like mist on a mountain-top broken and gray,
The dream of my early day fleeted away;
Now the evening of life with its shadows steal on,
And memory reposes on years that are gone!

Wild youth with strange fruitage of errors and tears-
A midday of bliss and a midnight of fears-
Though checker'd and sad, and mistaken you've been,
Still love I to muse on the hours we have seen!

With those long-vanished hours fair visions are flown,
And the soul of the minstrel sinks pensive and lone;
In vain would I ask of the future to bring
The verdure that gladden'd my life in its spring!

I think of the glen where the hazel-nut grew

The pine-crowned hill where the heather-bells blewThe trout-burn which soothed with its murmuring sweet, The wild flowers that gleamed on the red-deer's retreat!

I look for the mates full of ardor and truth,

Whose joys, like my own, were the sunbeams of youth—
They passed ere the morning of hope knew its close-
They left me to sleep where our fathers repose!

Where is now the wide hearth with the big fagot's blaze,
Where circled the legend and song of old days?
The legend 's forgotten, the hearth is grown cold,
The home of my childhood to strangers is sold !

Like a pilgrim who speeds on a perilous way,

I pause, ere I part, oft again to survey

Those scenes ever dear to the friends I deplore,

Whose feast of young smiles I may never share more! WILLIAM MOTHERWELL, 1798-1835.

EMBLEM.

A FLOWER GARDEN WITH SUNSHINE AND RAIN.

When all the year our fields are fresh and green,
And while sweet flowers and sunshine every day,
As oft as need requireth, come between
The heav'ns and earth, they heedless pass away.
The fullness and continuance of a blessing

Do make us to be senseless of the good;
And if it sometime fly not our possessing,

The sweetness of it is not understood.

Had we no winter, summer would be thought Not half so pleasing; and if tempests were not, Such comforts could not by a calm be brought: For things, save by their opposites, appear not. Both health and wealth are tasteless unto some;

And so is ease, and every other pleasure,

Till poor, or rich, or grieved they become;
And then they relish these in ampler measure.
God, therefore, full as kind as he is wise,
So tempereth all the favors he will do us,

That we his bounties may the better prize,
And make his chastisements less bitter to us.

One while a scorching indignation burns
The flowers and blossoms of our hopes away,
Which into scarcity our plenty turns,
And changeth unmown grass to parched hay;
Anon his fruitful showers and pleasing dews,
Commixt with cheerful rays, he sendeth down;
And then the barren earth her crop renews,
Which with rich harvests hills and valleys crown :
For, as to relish joys he sorrow sends,
So comfort on temptation still attends.

GEORGE WITHER, 1588-1667.

SONG.

Composed by Robert Duke of Normandy, when a prisoner in Cardiff Castle, and addressed to an old oak, growing in an ancient camp within view from the tower in which he was confined. Imitated by Bishop Heber.

Oak, that stately and alone

On the war-worn mound hast grown,
The blood of man thy sapling fed,

And dyed thy tender root in red;
Woe to the feast where foes combine,
Woe to the strife of words and wine!

Oak, thou hast sprung for many a year,
'Mid whisp'ring rye-grass tall and sere,
The coarse rank herb, which seems to show
That bones unbless'd are laid below;
Woe to the sword that hates its sheath,
Woe to th' unholy trade of death!

Oak, from the mountain's airy brow,
Thou view'st the subject woods below,
And merchants hail the well-known tree,
Returning o'er the Severn sea.

Woe, woe to him whose birth is high,

For peril waits on royalty!

Now storms have bent thee to the ground,

And envious ivy clips thee round;

And shepherd hinds in wanton play
Have stripped thy needful bark away;

Woe to the man whose foes are strong,
Thrice woe to him who lives too long!

REGINALD HEBER.

ROBERT OF NORMANDY, about 1107.

TO A MOUNTAIN-DAISY,

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOW, APRIL, 1786.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem!

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewie weet,
Wi' speckled breast,

When upward springing, blythe to greet
The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth,

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm-

Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random bield,

O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.

There in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sun-ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless breast;

Till she, like thee, all soil'd is laid

Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd,
Unskillful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er.

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n,

To mis'ry's brink;

Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He ruin'd sink.

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;

Stern ruin's plowshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,

Till, crush'd beneath the furious weight,

Shall be thy doom!

ROBERT BURNS, 1750-1796.

MOSSGIEL.

"There," said a stripling, pointing with much pride
Toward a low roof, with green trees half conceal'd,
Is Mossgiel farm; and that's the very field
Where Burns plow'd up the daisy!" Far and wide
A plain below stretch'd seaward; while, descried,
Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose;
And, by that simple notice, the repose
Of earth, sky, sea, and air was vivified.

Beneath the random field of clod or stone,
Myriads of daisies here shone forth in flower,
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have pass'd away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling plowshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850.