Music: Music, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Sensitive Plant: A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew; And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast But none ever trembled and panted with bliss, In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, Autumn : The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying; Come, months, come away, from November to May, In your saddest array ; Follow the bier of the dead cold year, And, like dim shadows, watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone Come, months, come away; put on white, black, and gray, Spring: Up, follow the bier of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. O Spring! of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness, Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet; Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest A short time before poor KEATS's death, he told an artist-friend that he thought his intensest pleasure in life had been to watch the growth of flowers; and not long before he died, he said, "I feel the flowers growing over me." "His grave, at Rome, is marked by a little head-stone, on which are carved, somewhat rudely, his name and age, and the epitaph dictated by himself a few days previously 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' No tree or shrub has been planted near it, but the daisies, faithful to A thing of beauty is a joy forever— Pass into nothingness, but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing! A flowery band to bind us to the earth. His most renowned poem is the Eve of St. Agnes: here are a few stanzas: St. Agnes' eve-ah! bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; And silent was the flock in woolly fold; Numb were the Beadman's fingers, while he told His rosary, and while his frosted breath, Like pious incense from a censer old, Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death, Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith. Full on the casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 1 J. R. Lowell. Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, A casement high and triple-arched it was, All garlanded with carven imageries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. Now let us turn to the pictorial pages of one of our most picturesque poets, WHITTIER, whose "lyre has been struck to many a stirring note for freedom and human progress." We have the highest authority for ascribing to his muse the attributes of "lyric fervour and intensity combined with a tender and graceful fancy." Our American bard is a true worshipper of Nature, as we see from the following fine passage:— The ocean looketh up to heaven, as 'twere a living thing; |