Think what it means to me and you To see it even as God Evolved it when the world was new! When Light rose, earthquake-shod, And slow its gradual splendor grew O'er deeps the whirlwind trod.

What shoutings then and cymballings Arose from depth and height! What worship-solemn trumpetings, And thunders, burning-white, Of winds and waves, and anthemings Of Earth received the Light.

Think what it meant to see the dawn! The dawn, that comes each day!— What if the East should ne'er grow wan, Should nevermore grow gray! That line of rose no more be drawn Above the ocean's spray!

Madison Cawein [1865-1914]



DAWN-ANGELS

All night I watched awake for morning, At last the East grew all a flame, The birds for welcome sang, or warning, And with their singing morning came.

Along the gold-green heavens drifted Pale wandering souls that shun the light, Whose cloudy pinions, torn and rifted, Had beat the bars of Heaven all night.

These clustered round the moon, but higher A troop of shining spirits went, Who were not made of wind or fire, But some divine dream-element.

Some held the Light, while those remaining Shook out their harvest-colored wings, A faint unusual music raining, (Whose sound was Light) on earthly things.

They sang, and as a mighty river Their voices washed the night away, From East to West ran one white shiver, And waxen strong their song was Day.

A. Mary F. Robinson [1857-



MUSIC OF THE DAWN At Sea, October 23, 1907

In far forests' leafy twilight, now is stealing gray dawn's shy light, And the misty air is tremulous with songs of many a bird; While from mountain steeps descending, every streamlet's voice is blending With the anthems of great pine trees, by the breath of daylight stirred.

But I turn from Fancy's dreaming of the green earth, to the gleaming Of the fluttering wings of morning rushing o'er the jewelled deep; And the ocean's rhythmic pounding, with each lucent wave resounding, Seems the music made when God's own hands His mighty harpstrings sweep.

Virginia Bioren Harrison [1847-



SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN

O swift forerunners, rosy with the race! Spirits of dawn, divinely manifest Behind your blushing banners in the sky, Daring invaders of Night's tenting-ground,— How do ye strain on forward-bending foot, Each to be first in heralding of joy! With silence sandalled, so they weave their way, And so they stand, with silence panoplied, Chanting, through mystic symbollings of flame, Their solemn invocation to the light.

O changeless guardians! O ye wizard firs! What strenuous philter feeds your potency, That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness. Ready to learn of all and utter naught? What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite To odorous hot lendings of the heart? What wind—but all the winds are yet afar, And e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites, That fleet before them, like their elfin locks, Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet To pluck the robe of patient majesty.

Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep, So range the firs, the constant, fearless ones. Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait, Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm, And yet expectant, as who knows the dawn, And all night thrills with memory and desire, Searching in what has been for what shall be: The marvel of the ne'er familiar day, Sacred investiture of life renewed, The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame.

Low in the valley lies the conquered rout Of man's poor trivial turmoil, lost and drowned Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled, Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main. And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch, One great good limpid world—so still, so still! For no sound echoes from its crystal curve Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn, And has no heart to finish, for the awe And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn.

Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars! Light, the revealer of dread beauty's face! Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad! Mighty libation to the Unknown God! Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst And little leaves drink sweet delirium! Being and breath and potion! Living soul And all-informing heart of all that lives! How can we magnify thine awful name Save by its chanting: Light! and light! and light! An exhalation from far sky retreats, It grows in silence, as 'twere self-create, Suffusing all the dusky web of night. But one lone corner it invades not yet, Where low above a black and rimy crag Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield, The holy, useless shield of long-past wars, Dinted and frosty, on the crystal dark. But lo! the east,—let none forget the east, Pathway ordained of old where He should tread. Through some sweet magic common in the skies The rosy banners are with saffron tinct: The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire, And led by silence more majestical Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes! He holds his spear benignant, sceptrewise, And strikes out flame from the adoring hills.

Alice Brown [1857-



ODE TO EVENING

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales;

O Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises, 'midst the twilight path Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant Hours, and Elves Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car:

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile, Or upland fallows gray Reflect its last cool gleam.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut That, from the mountain's side, Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as of the wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes:

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And hymn thy favorite name!

William Collins [1721-1759]



"IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE"

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in his tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]



GLOAMING

Skies to the West are stained with madder; Amber light on the rare blue hills; The sough of the pines is growing sadder; From the meadow-lands sound the whippoorwills. Air is sweet with the breath of clover; Dusk is on, and the day is over.

Skies to the East are streaked with golden; Tremulous light on the darkening pond; Glow-worms pale, to the dark beholden; Twitterings hush in the hedge beyond. Air is sweet with the breath of clover; Silver the hills where the moon climbs over.

Robert Adger Bowen [1868-



EVENING MELODY

O that the pines which crown yon steep Their fires might ne'er surrender! O that yon fervid knoll might keep, While lasts the world, its splendor!

Pale poplars on the breeze that lean, And in the sunset shiver, O that your golden stems might screen For aye yon glassy river!

That yon white bird on homeward wing Soft-sliding without motion, And now in blue air vanishing Like snow-flake lost in ocean,

Beyond our sight might never flee, Yet forward still be flying; And all the dying day might be Immortal in its dying!

Pellucid thus in saintly trance, Thus mute in expectation, What waits the earth? Deliverance? Ah no! Transfiguration!

She dreams of that "New Earth" divine, Conceived of seed immortal; She sings "Not mine the holier shrine, Yet mine the steps and portal!"

Aubrey Thomas de Vere [1814-1902]



"IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING"

In the cool of the evening, when the low sweet whispers waken, When the laborers turn them homeward, and the weary have their will, When the censers of the roses o'er the forest aisles are shaken, Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far green hill?

For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that wander through the heather, Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the dewy fern; They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds in prayer together, And fill the shaken pools with fire along the shadowy burn.

In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden that He loveth, They have veiled His lovely vesture with the darkness of a name! Through His Garden, through His Garden, it is but the wind that moveth, No more! But O the miracle, the miracle is the same.

In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an old story, Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved with passion still... Hush!... the fringes of His garment, in the fading golden glory Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green hill.

Alfred Noyes [1880-



TWILIGHT

Spirit of Twilight, through your folded wings I catch a glimpse of your averted face, And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings "Is not this common earth a holy place?"

Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song That sleeps, and waits a singer,—like a hymn That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long, Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim.

Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found A woman sitting in a silent room Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound.

These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all, And the room's name is Mystery where you sit, Woman whom we call Twilight, when night's pall You lift across our Earth to cover it.

Olive Custance [1874-



TWILIGHT AT SEA

The twilight hours, like birds, flew by, As lightly and as free, Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand on the sea; For every wave, with dimpled face, That leaped upon the air, Had caught a star in its embrace, And held it trembling there.

Amelia C. Welby [1819-1852]



"THIS IS MY HOUR"

I The ferries ply like shuttles in a loom, And many barques come in across the bay To lights and bells that signal through the gloom Of twilight gray;

And like the brown soft flutter of the snow The wide-winged sea-birds droop from closing skies, And hover near the water, circling low, As the day dies.

The city like a shadowed castle stands, Its turrets indistinctly touching night; Like earth-born stars far fetched from faerie lands, Its lamps are bright.

This is my hour,—when wonder springs anew To see the towers ascending, pale and high, And the long seaward distances of blue, And the dim sky.

II This is my hour, between the day and night; The sun has set and all the world is still, The afterglow upon the distant hill Is as a holy light.

This is my hour, between the sun and moon; The little stars are gathering in the sky, There is no sound but one bird's startled cry,— One note that ceases soon.

The gardens and, far off, the meadow-land, Are like the fading depths beneath a sea, While over waves of misty shadows we Drift onward, hand in hand.

This is my hour, that you have called your own; Its hushed beauty silently we share,— Touched by the wistful wonder in the air That leaves us so alone.

III In rain and twilight mist the city street, Hushed and half-hidden, might this instant be A dark canal beneath our balcony, Like one in Venice, Sweet.

The street-lights blossom, star-wise, one by one; A lofty tower the shadows have not hid Stands out—part column and part pyramid— Holy to look upon.

The dusk grows deeper, and on silver wings The twilight flutters like a weary gull Toward some sea-island, lost and beautiful, Where a sea-syren sings.

"This is my hour," you breathe with quiet lips; And filled with beauty, dreaming and devout, We sit in silence, while our thoughts go out— Like treasure-seeking ships.

Zoe Akins [1886-



SONG TO THE EVENING STAR

Star that bringest home the bee, And sett'st the weary laborer free! If any star shed peace, 'tis thou That send'st it from above, Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow Are sweet as hers we love.

Come to the luxuriant skies, Whilst the landscape's odors rise, Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard And songs when toil is done, From cottages whose smoke unstirred Curls yellow in the sun.

Star of love's soft interviews, Parted lovers on thee muse; Their remembrancer in Heaven Of thrilling vows thou art, Too delicious to be riven By absence from the heart.

Thomas Campbell [1777-1844]



THE EVENING CLOUD

A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow; Long had I watched the glory moving on O'er the still radiance of the lake below. Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow! Even in its very motion there was rest; While every breath of eve that chanced to blow Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west. Emblem, methought, of the departed soul! To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given, And by the breath of mercy made to roll Right onwards to the golden gates of heaven, Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies, And tells to man his glorious destinies.

John Wilson [1785-1854]



SONG: TO CYNTHIA From "Cynthia's Revels"

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear, when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright.

Ben Jonson [1573?-1637]



MY STAR

All that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue, Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]



NIGHT

The sun descending in the West, The evening star does shine; The birds are silent in their nest, And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower In heaven's high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy grove, Where flocks have ta'en delight; Where lambs have nibbled, silent move The feet of angels bright: Unseen, they pour blessing, And joy without ceasing, On each bud and blossom, On each sleeping bosom.

They look in every thoughtless nest, Where birds are covered warm; They visit caves of every beast, To keep them all from harm. If they see any weeping That should have been sleeping, They pour sleep on their head, And sit down by their bed.

When wolves and tigers howl for prey They pitying stand and weep, Seeking to drive their thirst away, And keep them from the sheep. But, if they rush dreadful, The angels, most heedful, Receive each mild spirit New worlds to inherit.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes Shall flow with tears of gold: And pitying the tender cries, And walking round the fold, Saying: "Wrath by His meekness, And by His health, sickness, Are driven away From our immortal day.

"And now beside thee, bleating lamb, I can lie down and sleep. Or think on Him who bore thy name, Graze after thee, and weep. For, washed in life's river, My bright mane for ever Shall shine like the gold, As I guard o'er the fold."

William Blake [1757-1827]



TO NIGHT

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear, Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; Kiss her until she be wearied out, Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand— Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn, I sighed for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried, "Would'st thou me?" Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noontide bee, "Shall I nestle near thy side? Would'st thou me?"—And I replied, "No, not thee." Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon— Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night— Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]



TO NIGHT

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! creation widened on man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind! Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife?— If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

Joseph Blanco White [1775-1841]



NIGHT

Mysterious night! Spread wide thy silvery plume! Soft as swan's down, brood o'er the sapphirine Breadth of still shadowy waters dark as wine; Smooth out the liquid heavens that stars illume! Come with fresh airs breathing the faint perfume Of deep-walled gardens, groves of whispering pine; Scatter soft dews, waft pure sea-scent of brine; In sweet repose man's pain, man's love resume! Deep-bosomed night! Not here where down the marge Marble with palaces those lamps of earth Tremble on trembling blackness; nay, far hence, There on the lake where space is lone and large, And man's life lost in broad indifference, Lilt thou the soul to spheres that gave her birth!

John Addington Symonds [1840-1893]



NIGHT

Night is the time for rest; How sweet, when labors close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Down on our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams; The gay romance of life, When truth that is, and truth that seems, Blend in fantastic strife; Ah! visions, less beguiling far Than waking dreams by daylight are!

Night is the time for toil; To plough the classic field, Intent to find the buried spoil Its wealthy furrows yield; Till all is ours that sages taught, That poets sang, or heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep; To wet with unseen tears Those graves of Memory, where sleep The joys of other years; Hopes, that were Angels at their birth, But perished young, like things of earth.

Night is the time to watch; O'er ocean's dark expanse, To hail the Pleiades, or catch The full moon's earliest glance, That brings into the homesick mind All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care; Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of Despair Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host, Summoned to die by Caesar's ghost.

Night is the time to think; When, from the eye, the soul Takes flight; and, on the utmost brink, Of yonder starry pole Descries beyond the abyss of night The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away; So will his followers do,— Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, And hold communion there with God.

Night is the time for Death; When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath, From sin and suffering cease, Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends;—such death be mine!

James Montgomery [1771-1854]



HE MADE THE NIGHT

Vast Chaos, of eld, was God's dominion, 'Twas His beloved child, His own first born; And He was aged ere the thought of morn Shook the sheer steeps of dim Oblivion. Then all the works of darkness being done Through countless aeons hopelessly forlorn, Out to the very utmost verge and bourne, God at the last, reluctant, made the sun. He loved His darkness still, for it was old; He grieved to see His eldest child take flight; And when His Fiat Lux the death-knell tolled, As the doomed Darkness backward by Him rolled, He snatched a remnant flying into light And strewed it with the stars, and called it Night.

Lloyd Mifflin [1846-1921]



HYMN TO THE NIGHT

I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o'er me from above; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, The manifold, soft chimes, That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air My spirit drank repose; The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,— From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear What man has borne before! Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! Descend with broad-winged flight, The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]



NIGHT'S MARDI GRAS

Night is the true democracy. When day Like some great monarch with his train has passed. In regal pomp and splendor to the last, The stars troop forth along the Milky Way, A jostling crowd, in radiant disarray, On heaven's broad boulevard in pageants vast. And things of earth, the hunted and outcast, Come from their haunts and hiding-places; yea, Even from the nooks and crannies of the mind Visions uncouth and vagrant fancies start, And specters of dead joy, that shun the light, And impotent regrets and terrors blind, Each one, in form grotesque, playing its part In the fantastic Mardi Gras of Night.

Edward J. Wheeler [1859-1922]



DAWN AND DARK

God with His million cares Went to the left or right, Leaving our world; and the day Grew night.

Back from a sphere He came Over a starry lawn, Looked at our world; and the dark Grew dawn.

Norman Gale [1862-



DAWN

His radiant fingers so adorning Earth that in silent joy she thrills, The ancient day stands every morning Above the flowing eastern hills.

This day the new-born world hath taken Within his mantling arms of white, And sent her forth by fear unshaken To walk among the stars in light.

Risen with laughter unto leaping, His feet untired, undimmed his eyes, The old, old day comes up from sleeping, Fresh as a flower, for new emprise.

The curtain of the night is parted That once again the dawn may tread, In spotless garments, ways uncharted And death a million times is dead.

Slow speechless music robed in splendor The deep sky sings eternally, With childlike wonderment to render Its own unwearied symphony.

Reborn between the great suns spinning Forever where men's prayers ascend, God's day in love hath its beginning, And the beginning hath no end.

George B. Logan, Jr. [1892-



A WOOD SONG

Now one and all, you Roses, Wake up, you lie too long! This very morning closes The Nightingale his song;

Each from its olive chamber His babies every one This very morning clamber Into the shining sun.

You Slug-a-beds and Simples, Why will you so delay! Dears, doff your olive wimples, And listen while you may.

Ralph Hodgson [1871-



THE CHANGING YEAR



A SONG FOR THE SEASONS

When the merry lark doth gild With his song the summer hours, And their nests the swallows build In the roofs and tops of towers, And the golden broom-flower burns All about the waste, And the maiden May returns With a pretty haste,— Then, how merry are the times! The Spring times! the Summer times!

Now, from off the ashy stone The chilly midnight cricket crieth, And all merry birds are flown, And our dream of pleasure dieth; Now the once blue, laughing sky Saddens into gray, And the frozen rivers sigh, Pining all away! Now, how solemn are the times! The Winter times! the Night times!

Yet, be merry; all around Is through one vast change revolving; Even Night, who lately frowned, Is in paler dawn dissolving; Earth will burst her fetters strange, And in Spring grow free; All things in the world will change, Save—my love for thee! Sing then, hopeful are all times! Winter, Spring, Summer times!

Bryan Waller Procter [1787-1874]



A SONG OF THE SEASONS

Sing a song of Spring-time, The world is going round, Blown by the south wind: Listen to its sound. "Gurgle" goes the mill-wheel, "Cluck" clucks the hen; And it's O for a pretty girl To kiss in the glen.

Sing a song of Summer, The world is nearly still, The mill-pond has gone to sleep, And so has the mill. Shall we go a-sailing, Or shall we take a ride, Or dream the afternoon away Here, side by side?

Sing a song of Autumn, The world is going back; They glean in the corn-field, And stamp on the stack. Our boy, Charlie, Tall, strong, and light: He shoots all the day And dances all the night.

Sing a song of Winter, The world stops dead; Under snowy coverlid Flowers lie abed. There's hunting for the young ones And wine for the old, And a sexton in the churchyard Digging in the cold.

Cosmo Monkhouse [1840-1901]



TURN O' THE YEAR

This is the time when bit by bit The days begin to lengthen sweet And every minute gained is joy— And love stirs in the heart of a boy.

This is the time the sun, of late Content to lie abed till eight, Lifts up betimes his sleepy head— And love stirs in the heart of a maid.

This is the time we dock the night Of a whole hour of candlelight; When song of linnet and thrush is heard— And love stirs in the heart of a bird.

This is the time when sword-blades green, With gold and purple damascene, Pierce the brown crocus-bed a-row— And love stirs in a heart I know.

Katherine Tynan Hinkson [1861-1931]



THE WAKING YEAR

A lady red upon the hill Her annual secret keeps; A lady white within the field In placid lily sleeps!

The tidy breezes with their brooms Sweep vale, and hill, and tree! Prithee, my pretty housewives! Who may expected be?

The neighbors do not yet suspect! The woods exchange a smile,— Orchard, and buttercup, and bird, In such a little while!

And yet how still the landscape stands, How nonchalant the wood, As if the resurrection Were nothing very odd!

Emily Dickinson [1830-1886]



SONG From "Pippa Passes"

The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His Heaven— All's right with the world!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]



EARLY SPRING

Once more the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, And domes the red-plowed hills With loving blue; The blackbirds have their wills, The throstles too.

Opens a door in Heaven; From skies of glass A Jacob's ladder falls On greening grass, And o'er the mountain-walls Young angels pass.

Before them fleets the shower, And burst the buds, And shine the level lands, And flash the floods; The stars are from their hands Flung through the woods,

The woods with living airs How softly fanned, Light airs from where the deep, All down the sand, Is breathing in his sleep, Heard by the land.

O, follow, leaping blood, The season's lure! O heart, look down and up, Serene, secure, Warm as the crocus cup, Like snow-drops, pure!

Past, Future glimpse and fade Through some slight spell, A gleam from yonder vale, Some far blue fell; And sympathies, how frail, In sound and smell!

Till at thy chuckled note, Thou twinkling bird, The fairy fancies range, And, lightly stirred, Ring little bells of change From word to word.

For now the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, And thaws the cold, and fills The flower with dew; The blackbirds have their wills, The poets too.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]



LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sat reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure,— But the least motion which they made It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature's holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What Man has made of Man?

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]



IN EARLY SPRING

O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise In the young children's eyes. But I have learnt the years, and know the yet Leaf-folded violet. Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell The cuckoo's fitful bell. I wander in a gray time that encloses June and the wild hedge-roses. A year's procession of the flowers doth pass My feet, along the grass. And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know The notes that stir you so, Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear Beginnings of the year. In these young days you meditate your part; I have it all by heart. I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers Hidden and warm with showers, And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall Alter his interval. But not a flower or song I ponder is My own, but memory's. I shall be silent in those days desired Before a world inspired. O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases, Earth, thy familiar daisies.

The poet mused upon the dusky height, Between two stars towards night, His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space, The meaning of his face: There was the secret, fled from earth and skies, Hid in his gray young eyes. My heart and all the Summer wait his choice, And wonder for his voice. Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire But to divine his lyre? Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries, But he is lord of his.

Alice Meynell [1850-1922]



SPRING From "Summer's Last Will and Testament"

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing— Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay— Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, In every street these tunes our ears do greet— Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-too! Spring, the sweet Spring!

Thomas Nashe [1567-1601]



A STARLING'S SPRING RONDEL

I clink my castanet And beat my little drum; For spring at last has come, And on my parapet, Of chestnut, gummy-wet, Where bees begin to hum, I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum.

"Spring goes," you say, "suns set." So be it! Why be glum? Enough, the spring has come; And without fear or fret I clink my castanet, And beat my little drum.

James Cousins [1873-



"WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER" From "The Winter's Tale"

When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The, lark, that tirra-lirra chants, With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay.

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]



SPRING From "In Memoriam"

LXXXIII Dip down upon the northern shore, O sweet new-year, delaying long; Thou doest expectant Nature wrong, Delaying long, delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons, Thy sweetness from its proper place? Can trouble live with April days, Or sadness in the summer moons?

Bring orchis, bring the fox-glove spire, The little speedwell's darling blue, Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou, new-year, delaying long, Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud, And flood a fresher throat with song.

CXV Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drowned in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail, On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood, that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too: and my regret Become an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]



"THE SPRING RETURNS"

The Spring returns! What matters then that War On the horizon like a beacon burns, That Death ascends, man's most desired star, That Darkness is his hope? The Spring returns! Triumphant through the wider-arched cope She comes, she comes, unto her tyranny, And at her coronation are set ope The prisons of the mind, and man is free! The beggar-garbed or over-bent with snows, Each mortal, long defeated, disallowed, Feeling her touch, grows stronger limbed, and knows The purple on his shoulders and is proud. The Spring returns! O madness beyond sense, Breed in our bones thine own omnipotence!

Charles Leonard Moore [1854-



"WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING" Chorus from "Atalanta in Calydon"

When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamor of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendor and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, Fold our hands round her knees, and cling? O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring! For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered, is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, And the oat is heard above the lyre, And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid, Follows with dancing and fills with delight The Maenad and the Bassarid; And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the trees divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes; The wild vine slipping down leaves bare Her bright breast shortening into sighs; The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves, But the berried ivy catches and cleaves To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]



SONG

Again rejoicing Nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues; Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steeped in morning dews.

In vain to me the cowslips blaw, In vain to me the violets spring; In vain to me in glen or shaw, The mavis and the lintwhite sing.

The merry ploughboy cheers his team, Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks, But life to me's a weary dream, A dream of ane that never wauks.

The wanton coot the water skims, Amang the reeds the ducklings cry, The stately swan majestic swims, And everything is blest but I.

The shepherd steeks his faulding slap, And owre the moorland whistles shrill; Wi' wild, unequal, wand'ring step I meet him on the dewy hill.

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark, Blithe waukens by the daisy's side, And mounts and sings on flittering wings, A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.

Come, Winter, with thine angry howl, And raging bend the naked tree; Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul, When Nature all is sad like me!

Robert Burns [1759-1796]



TO SPRING

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down Through the clear windows of the morning, turn Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell one another, and the listening Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth And let thy holy feet visit our clime!

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put Thy golden crown upon her languished head, Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee!

William Blake [1757-1827]



AN ODE ON THE SPRING

Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours, Fair Venus' train, appear, Disclose the long-expecting flowers, And wake the purple year! The Attic warbler pours her throat Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of spring: While, whispering pleasure as they fly, Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade, Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think (At ease reclined in rustic state) How vain the ardor of the crowd, How low, how little are the proud, How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care: The panting herds repose: Yet, hark, how through the peopled air The busy murmur glows! The insect-youth are on the wing, Eager to taste the honied spring And float amid the liquid noon; Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gaily-gilded trim Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the Busy and the Gay But flutter through life's little day, In Fortune's varying colors dressed: Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chilled by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low, The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, No painted plumage to display; On hasty wings thy youth is flown; Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone— We frolic, while 'tis May.

Thomas Gray [1716-1771]



SPRING

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air Which dwells with all things fair, Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain, Is with us once again.

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with green festoons The banks of dark lagoons.

In the deep heart of every forest tree The blood is all aglee, And there's a look about the leafless bowers As if they dreamed of flowers.

Yet still on every side we trace the hand Of Winter in the land, Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, Flushed by the season's dawn;

Or where, like those strange semblances we find That age to childhood bind, The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn, The brown of Autumn corn.

As yet the turf is dark, although you know That, not a span below, A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, And soon will burst their tomb.

Already, here and there, on frailest stems Appear some azure gems, Small as might deck, upon a gala day, The forehead of a fay.

In gardens you may note amid the dearth, The crocus breaking earth; And near the snowdrop's tender white and green, The violet in its screen.

But many gleams and shadows needs must pass Along the budding grass, And weeks go by, before the enamored South Shall kiss the rose's mouth.

Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn In the sweet airs of morn; One almost looks to see the very street Grow purple at his feet.

At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, And brings, you know not why, A feeling as when eager crowds await Before a palace gate

Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start, If from a beech's heart A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, "Behold me! I am May!"

Henry Timrod [1829-1867]



THE MEADOWS IN SPRING

'Tis a dull sight To see the year dying, When winter winds Set the yellow wood sighing: Sighing, oh! sighing.

When such a time cometh, I do retire Into an old room Beside a bright fire: Oh, pile a bright fire!

And there I sit Reading old things, Of knights and lorn damsels, While the wind sings— Oh, drearily sings!

I never look out Nor attend to the blast; For all to be seen Is the leaves falling fast: Falling, falling!

But close at the hearth, Like a cricket, sit I, Reading of summer And chivalry— Gallant chivalry!

Then with an old friend I talk of our youth! How 'twas gladsome, but often Foolish, forsooth: But gladsome, gladsome!

Or to get merry We sing some old rhyme, That made the wood ring again In summer time— Sweet summer time!

Then go we to smoking, Silent and snug: Naught passes between us, Save a brown jug— Sometimes!

And sometimes a tear Will rise in each eye, Seeing the two old friends So merrily— So merrily!

And ere to bed Go we, go we, Down on the ashes We kneel on the knee, Praying together!

Thus, then, live I, Till, 'mid all the gloom, By heaven! the bold sun Is with me in the room Shining, shining!

Then the clouds part, Swallows soaring between; The spring is alive, And the meadows are green!

I jump up, like mad, Break the old pipe in twain, And away to the meadows, The meadows again!

Edward Fitzgerald [1809-1883]



THE SPRING

When wintry weather's all a-done, An' brooks do sparkle in the zun, An' naisy-builden rooks do vlee Wi' sticks toward their elem tree; When birds do zing, an' we can zee Upon the boughs the buds o' spring,— Then I'm as happy as a king, A-vield wi' health an' zunsheen.

Vor then the cowlsip's hangen flower A-wetted in the zunny shower, Do grow wi' vi'lets, sweet o' smell, Bezide the wood-screened graegle's bell; Where drushes' aggs, wi' sky-blue shell, Do lie in mossy nest among The thorns, while they do zing their zong At evenen in the zunsheen.

An' God do meake his win' to blow An' rain to vall vor high an' low, An' bid his mornen zun to rise Vor all alike, an' groun' an' skies Ha' colors vor the poor man's eyes: An' in our trials He is near, To hear our mwoan an' zee our tear, An' turn our clouds to zunsheen.

An' many times when I do vind Things all goo wrong, an' v'ok unkind, To zee the happy veeden herds, An' hear the zingen o' the birds, Do soothe my sorrow mwore than words; Vor I do zee that 'tis our sin Do meake woone's soul so dark 'ithin, When God would gi'e woone zunsheen.

William Barnes [1801-1886]



"WHEN SPRING COMES BACK TO ENGLAND"

When Spring comes back to England And crowns her brows with May, Round the merry moonlit world She goes the greenwood way: She throws a rose to Italy, A fleur-de-lys to France; But round her regal morris-ring The seas of England dance.

When Spring comes back to England And dons her robe of green, There's many a nation garlanded But England is the Queen; She's Queen, she's Queen of all the world Beneath the laughing sky, For the nations go a-Maying When they hear the New Year cry—

"Come over the water to England, My old love, my new love, Come over the water to England, In showers of flowery rain; Come over the water to England, April, my true love; And tell the heart of England The Spring is here again!"

Alfred Noyes [1880-



NEW LIFE

Spring comes laughing down the valley All in white, from the snow Where the winter's armies rally Loth to go. Beauty white her garments shower On the world where they pass,— Hawthorn hedges, trees in flower, Daisies in the grass. Tremulous with longings dim, Thickets by the river's rim Have begun to dream of green. Every tree is loud with birds. Bourgeon, heart,—do thy part! Raise a slender stalk of words From a root unseen.

Amelia Josephine Burr [1878-



"OVER THE WINTRY THRESHOLD"

Over the wintry threshold Who comes with joy today, So frail, yet so enduring, To triumph o'er dismay?

Ah, quick her tears are springing, And quickly they are dried, For sorrow walks before her, But gladness walks beside.

She comes with gusts of laughter,— The music as of rills; With tenderness and sweetness, The wisdom of the hills.

Her hands are strong to comfort, Her heart is quick to heed; She knows the signs of sadness, She knows the voice of need;

There is no living creature, However poor or small, But she will know its trouble, And hearken to its call.

Oh, well they fare forever, By mighty dreams possessed, Whose hearts have lain a moment On that eternal breast.

Bliss Carman [1861-1929]



MARCH

Slayer of winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky. Welcome, O March! whose kindly days and dry Make April ready for the throstle's song, Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong!

Yea, welcome, March! and though I die ere June, Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise, Striving to swell the burden of the tune That even now I hear thy brown birds raise, Unmindful of the past or coming days; Who sing, "O joy! a new year is begun! What happiness to look upon the sun!"

O, what begetteth all this storm of bliss, But Death himself, who, crying solemnly, Even from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness, Bids us, "Rejoice! lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and, while ye live, Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give."

William Morris [1834-1896]



SONG IN MARCH

Now are the winds about us in their glee, Tossing the slender tree; Whirling the sands about his furious car, March cometh from afar; Breaks the sealed magic of old Winter's dreams, And rends his glassy streams; Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes Their fetters from the lakes, And, with a power by queenly Spring supplied, Wakens the slumbering tide.

With a wild love he seeks young Summer's charms And clasps her to his arms; Lifting his shield between, he drives away Old Winter from his prey;— The ancient tyrant whom he boldly braves, Goes howling to his caves; And, to his northern realm compelled to fly, Yields up the victory; Melted are all his bands, o'erthrown his towers, And March comes bringing flowers.

William Gilmore Simms [1806-1870]



MARCH

Blossom on the plum, Wild wind and merry; Leaves upon the cherry, And one swallow come.

Red windy dawn, Swift rain and sunny; Wild bees seeking honey, Crocus on the lawn; Blossom on the plum.

Grass begins to grow, Dandelions come; Snowdrops haste to go After last month's snow; Rough winds beat and blow, Blossom on the plum.

Nora Hopper [1871-1906]



WRITTEN IN MARCH

The Cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill On the top of the bare hill; The ploughboy is whooping—anon—anon There's joy in the mountains; There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing; The rain is over and gone!

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]



THE PASSING OF MARCH

The braggart March stood in the season's door With his broad shoulders blocking up the way, Shaking the snow-flakes from the cloak he wore, And from the fringes of his kirtle gray. Near by him April stood with tearful face, With violets in her hands, and in her hair Pale, wild anemones; the fragrant lace Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair, Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.

She on the blusterer's arm laid one white hand, But he would none of her soft blandishment, Yet did she plead with tears none might withstand, For even the fiercest hearts at last relent. And he, at last, in ruffian tenderness, With one swift, crushing kiss her lips did greet. Ah, poor starved heart!—for that one rude caress, She cast her violets underneath his feet.

Robert Burns Wilson [1850-1916]



HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!

And after April, when May follows And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge— That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower —Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]



SONG

April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter; Then, the moment after, Weep thy girlish tears! April, that mine ears Like a lover greetest, If I tell thee, sweetest, All my hopes and fears, April, April, Laugh thy golden laughter, But, the moment after, Weep thy golden tears!

William Watson [1858-1935]



AN APRIL ADORATION

Sang the sun rise on an amber morn— "Earth, be glad! An April day is born.

"Winter's done, and April's in the skies, Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!"

Putting off her dumb dismay of snow, Earth bade all her unseen children grow.

Then the sound of growing in the air Rose to God a liturgy of prayer;

And the thronged succession of the days Uttered up to God a psalm of praise.

Laughed the running sap in every vein, Laughed the running flurries of warm rain,

Laughed the life in every wandering root, Laughed the tingling cells of bud and shoot.

God in all the concord of their mirth Heard the adoration-song of Earth.

Charles G. D. Roberts [1860-



SWEET WILD APRIL

O sweet wild April Came over the hills, He skipped with the winds And he tripped with the rills; His raiment was all Of the daffodils. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

O sweet wild April Came down the lea, Dancing along With his sisters three: Carnation, and Rose, And tall Lily. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

O sweet wild April, On pastoral quill Came piping in moonlight By hollow and hill, In starlight at midnight, By dingle and rill. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

Where sweet wild April His melody played, Trooped cowslip, and primrose, And iris, the maid, And silver narcissus, A star in the shade. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

When sweet wild April Dipped down the dale, Pale cuckoopint brightened, And windflower trail, And white-thorn, the wood-bride, In virginal veil. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

When sweet wild April Through deep woods pressed, Sang cuckoo above him, And lark on his crest, And Philomel fluttered Close under his breast. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

O sweet wild April, Wherever you went The bondage of winter Was broken and rent, Sank elfin ice-city And frost-goblin's tent. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

Yet sweet wild April, The blithe, the brave, Fell asleep in the fields By a windless wave And Jack-in-the-Pulpit Preached over his grave. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

O sweet wild April, Farewell to thee! And a deep sweet sleep To thy sisters three,— Carnation, and Rose, And tall Lily. Sing hi, Sing hey, Sing ho!

William Force Stead [18—



SPINNING IN APRIL

Moon in heaven's garden, among the clouds that wander, Crescent moon so young to see, above the April ways, Whiten, bloom not yet, not yet, within the twilight yonder; All my spinning is not done, for all the loitering days.

Oh, my heart has two wild wings that ever would be flying! Oh, my heart's a meadow-lark that ever would be free! Well it is that I must spin until the light be dying; Well it is the little wheel must turn all day for me!

All the hill-tops beckon, and beyond the western meadows Something calls me ever, calls me ever, low and clear: A little tree as young as I, the coming summer shadows,— The voice of running waters that I ever thirst to hear.

Oftentime the plea of it has set my wings a-beating; Oftentimes it coaxes, as I sit in weary-wise, Till the wild life hastens out to wild things all entreating, And leaves me at the spinning-wheel, with dark, unseeing eyes.

Josephine Preston Peabody [1874-1922]



SONG: ON MAY MORNING

Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire! Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

John Milton [1608-1674]



A MAY BURDEN

Though meadow-ways as I did tread, The corn grew in great lustihead, And hey! the beeches burgeoned. By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay! It is the month, the jolly month, It is the jolly month of May.

God ripe the wines and corn, I say, And wenches for the marriage-day, And boys to teach love's comely play. By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay! It is the month, the jolly month, It is the jolly month of May.

As I went down by lane and lea, The daisies reddened so, pardie! "Blushets!" I said, "I well do see, By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay! The thing ye think of in this month, Heigho! this jolly month of May."

As down I went by rye and oats, The blossoms smelt of kisses; throats Of birds turned kisses into notes; By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay! The kiss it is a growing flower, I trow, this jolly month of May.

God send a mouth to every kiss, Seeing the blossom of this bliss By gathering doth grow, certes! By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay! Thy brow-garland pushed all aslant Tells—but I tell not, wanton May!

Francis Thompson [1859?-1907]



CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING

Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colors through the air: Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see The dew bespangling herb and tree. Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east, Above an hour since: yet you not dressed; Nay! not so much as out of bed; When all the birds have matins said And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin, Nay, profanation, to keep in, When as a thousand virgins on this day Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green, And sweet as Flora. Take no care For jewels for your gown or hair: Fear not; the leaves will strew Gems in abundance upon you: Besides, the childhood of the day has kept, Against you come, some orient pearls unwept; Come, and receive them while the light Hangs on the dew-locks of the night, And Titan on the eastern hill Retires himself, or else stands still Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying: Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark How each field turns a street, each street a park Made green and trimmed with trees; see how Devotion gives each house a bough Or branch: each porch, each door, ere this, An ark, a tabernacle is, Made up of white-thorn, neatly interwove; As if here were those cooler shades of love. Can such delights be in the street And open fields, and we not see't? Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey The proclamation made for May: And sin no more, as we have done, by staying; But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

There's not a budding boy or girl, this day, But is got up, and gone to bring in May. A deal of youth, ere this, is come Back, and with white-thorn laden home. Some have despatched their cakes and cream Before that we have left to dream: And some have wept, and wooed and plighted troth, And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth: Many a green gown has been given; Many a kiss, both odd and even: Many a glance, too, has been sent From out the eye, love's firmament; Many a jest told of the keys betraying This night, and locks picked, yet we're not a-Maying.

Come, let us go, while we are in our prime, And take the harmless folly of the time. We shall grow old apace, and die Before we know our liberty. Our life is short, and our days run As fast away as does the sun; And, as a vapor or a drop of rain, Once lost, can ne'er be found again: So when or you or I are made A fable, song, or fleeting shade, All love, all liking, all delight Lies drowned with us in endless night. Then while time serves, and we are but decaying, Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]



"SISTER, AWAKE!"

Sister, awake! close not your eyes! The day her light discloses, And the bright morning doth arise Out of her bed of roses.

See the clear sun, the world's bright eye, In at our window peeping: Lo, how he blusheth to espy Us idle wenches sleeping!

Therefore awake! make haste, I say, And let us, without staying, All in our gowns of green so gay Into the Park a-maying!

Unknown



MAY

May! queen of blossoms, And fulfilling flowers, With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours? Wilt thou have pipe and reed, Blown in the open mead? Or to the lute give heed In the green bowers?

Thou hast no need of us, Or pipe or wire; Thou hast the golden bee Ripened with fire; And many thousand more Songsters, that thee adore, Filling earth's grassy floor With new desire.

Thou hast thy mighty herds, Tame and free-livers; Doubt not, thy music too In the deep rivers, And the whole plumy flight Warbling the day and night— Up at the gates of light, See, the lark quivers!

Edward Hovell-Thurlow [1781-1829]



MAY

Come walk with me along this willowed lane, Where, like lost coinage from some miser's store, The golden dandelions more and more Glow, as the warm sun kisses them again! For this is May! who with a daisy chain Leads on the laughing Hours; for now is o'er Long winter's trance. No longer rise and roar His forest-wrenching blasts. The hopeful swain, Along the furrow, sings behind his team; Loud pipes the redbreast—troubadour of spring, And vocal all the morning copses ring; More blue the skies in lucent lakelets gleam; And the glad earth, caressed by murmuring showers, Wakes like a bride, to deck herself with flowers!

Henry Sylvester Cornwell [1831-1886]



A SPRING LILT

Through the silver mist Of the blossom-spray Trill the orioles: list To their joyous lay! "What in all the world, in all the world," they say, Is half so sweet, so sweet, is half so sweet as May?"

"June! June! June!" Low croon The brown bees in the clover. "Sweet! sweet! sweet!" Repeat The robins, nested over.

Unknown



SUMMER LONGINGS

Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May,— Waiting for the pleasant rambles Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles, With the woodbine alternating, Scent the dewy way. Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing, Longing for the May,— Longing to escape from study To the young face fair and ruddy, And the thousand charms belonging To the summer's day. Ah! my heart is sick with longing, Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Sighing for the May,— Sighing for their sure returning, When the summer beams are burning, Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying, All the winter lay. Ah! my heart is sore with sighing, Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing, Throbbing for the May,— Throbbing for the seaside billows, Or the water-wooing willows; Where, in laughing and in sobbing, Glide the streams away. Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing, Throbbing for the May.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary, Waiting for the May: Spring goes by with wasted warnings,— Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings,— Summer comes, yet dark and dreary Life still ebbs away; Man is ever weary, weary, Waiting for the May!

Denis Florence MacCarthy [1817-1882]



MIDSUMMER

Around this lovely valley rise The purple hills of Paradise.

O, softly on yon banks of haze, Her rosy face the Summer lays!

Becalmed along the azure sky, The argosies of cloudland lie, Whose shores, with many a shining rift, Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.

Through all the long midsummer-day The meadow-sides are sweet with hay. I seek the coolest sheltered seat, Just where the field and forest meet,- Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland, The ancient oaks austere and grand, And fringy roots and pebbles fret The ripples of the rivulet.

I watch the mowers, as they go Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row. With even stroke their scythes they swing, In tune their merry whetstones ring. Behind the nimble youngsters run, And toss the thick swaths in the sun. The cattle graze, while, warm and still, Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill, And bright, where summer breezes break, The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and humblebee Come to the pleasant woods with me; Quickly before me runs the quail, Her chickens skulk behind the rail; High up the lone wood-pigeon sits, And the woodpecker pecks and flits. Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats its throbbing drum. The squirrel leaps among the boughs, And chatters in his leafy house. The oriole flashes by; and, look! Into the mirror of the brook, Where the vain bluebird trims his coat, Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly, The down of peace descends on me. O, this is peace! I have no need Of friend to talk, of book to read: A dear Companion here abides; Close to my thrilling heart He hides; The holy silence is His Voice: I lie and listen, and rejoice.

John Townsend Trowbridge [1827-1916]



A MIDSUMMER SONG

O, Father's gone to market-town, he was up before the day, And Jamie's after robins, and the man is making hay, And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill, While mother from the kitchen-door is calling with a will: "Polly!—Polly!—The cows are in the corn! O, where's Polly?"

From all the misty morning air there comes a summer sound— A murmur as of waters from skies and trees and ground. The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo, And over hill and hollow rings again the loud halloo: "Polly!—Polly!—The cows are in the corn! O, where's Polly?"

Above the trees the honey-bees swarm by with buzz and boom, And in the field and garden a thousand blossoms bloom. Within the farmer's meadow a brown-eyed daisy blows, And down at the edge of the hollow a red and thorny rose. But Polly!—Polly!—The cows are in the corn! O, where's Polly?

How strange at such a time of day the mill should stop its clatter! The farmer's wife is listening now and wonders what's the matter. O, wild the birds are singing in the wood and on the hill, While whistling up the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill. But Polly!—Polly!—The cows are in the corn! O, where's Polly?

Richard Watson Glider [1844-1909]



JUNE From the Prelude to "The Vision of Sir Launfal"

Over his keys the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives; Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite; And to our age's drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, We bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil's booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking: 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may be had for the asking; No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest corner. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world and she to her nest,— In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing!

James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]



JUNE

When the bubble moon is young, Down the sources of the breeze, Like a yellow lantern hung In the tops of blackened trees, There is promise she will grow Into beauty unforetold, Into all unthought-of gold. Heigh ho!

When the Spring has dipped her foot, Like a bather, in the air, And the ripples warm the root Till the little flowers dare, There is promise she will grow Sweeter than the Springs of old, Fairer than was ever told. Heigh ho!

But the moon of middle night, Risen, is the rounded moon; And the Spring of budding light Eddies into just a June. Ah, the promise—was it so? Nay, the gift was fairy gold; All the new is over-old. Heigh ho!

Harrison Smith Morris [1856-



HARVEST

Sweet, sweet, sweet, Is the wind's song, Astir in the rippled wheat All day long, It hath the brook's wild gayety, The sorrowful cry of the sea. Oh, hush and hear! Sweet, sweet and clear, Above the locust's whirr And hum of bee Rises that soft, pathetic harmony.

In the meadow-grass The innocent white daisies blow, The dandelion plume doth pass Vaguely to and fro,— The unquiet spirit of a flower That hath too brief an hour.

Now doth a little cloud all white, Or golden bright, Drift down the warm, blue sky; And now on the horizon line, Where dusky woodlands lie, A sunny mist doth shine, Like to a veil before a holy shrine, Concealing, half-revealing, things divine.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, Is the wind's song, Astir in the rippled wheat All day long. That exquisite music calls The reaper everywhere— Life and death must share. The golden harvest falls.

So doth all end,— Honored Philosophy, Science and Art, The bloom of the heart;— Master, Consoler, Friend, Make Thou the harvest of our days To fall within Thy ways.

Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz [?-1933]



SCYTHE SONG

Mowers, weary and brown, and blithe, What is the word methinks ye know, Endless over-word that the Scythe Sings to the blades of the grass below? Scythes that swing in the grass and clover, Something, still, they say as they pass; What is the word that, over and over, Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?

Hush, ah hush, the Scythes are saying, Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, Hush, they sing to the clover deep! Hush—'tis the lullaby Time is singing— Hush, and heed not, for all things pass, Hush, ah hush! and the Scythes are swinging Over the clover, over the grass!

Andrew Lang [1844-1912]



SEPTEMBER

Sweet is the voice that calls From babbling waterfalls In meadows where the downy seeds are flying; And soft the breezes blow, And eddying come and go, In faded gardens where the rose is dying.

Among the stubbled corn The blithe quail pipes at morn, The merry partridge drums in hidden places, And glittering insects gleam Above the reedy stream, Where busy spiders spin their filmy laces.

At eve, cool shadows fall Across the garden wall, And on the clustered grapes to purple turning; And pearly vapors lie Along the eastern sky, Where the broad harvest-moon is redly burning.

Ah, soon on field and hill The winds shall whistle chill, And patriarch swallows call their flocks together To fly from frost and snow, And seek for lands where blow The fairer blossoms of a balmier weather.

The pollen-dusted bees Search for the honey-lees That linger in the last flowers of September, While plaintive mourning doves Coo sadly to their loves Of the dead summer they so well remember.

The cricket chirps all day, "O fairest summer, stay!" The squirrel eyes askance the chestnuts browning; The wild fowl fly afar Above the foamy bar, And hasten southward ere the skies are frowning.

Now comes a fragrant breeze Through the dark cedar-trees, And round about my temples fondly lingers, In gentle playfulness, Like to the soft caress Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.

Yet, though a sense of grief Comes with the falling leaf, And memory makes the summer doubly pleasant, In all my autumn dreams A future summer gleams, Passing the fairest glories of the present!

George Arnold [1834-1865]



INDIAN SUMMER

These are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on The old, old sophistries of June,— A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, Almost thy plausibility Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, And softly through the altered air Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in the haze, Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake, Thy consecrated bread to break, Taste thine immortal wine!

Emily Dickinson [1830-1886]



PREVISION

Oh, days of beauty standing veiled apart, With dreamy skies and tender, tremulous air, In this rich Indian summer of the heart Well may the earth her jewelled halo wear.

The long brown fields—no longer drear and dull— Burn with the glow of these deep-hearted hours. Until the dry weeds seem more beautiful, More spiritlike than even summer's flowers.

But yesterday the world was stricken bare, Left old and dead in gray, enshrouding gloom; To-day what vivid wonder of the air Awakes the soul of vanished light and bloom?

Sharp with the clean, fine ecstasy of death, A mightier wind shall strike the shrinking earth, An exhalation of creative breath Wake the white wonder of the winter's birth.

In her wide Pantheon—her temple place— Wrapped in strange beauty and new comforting, We shall not miss the Summer's full-blown grace, Nor hunger for the swift, exquisite Spring.

Ada Foster Murray [1857-1936]



A SONG OF EARLY AUTUMN

When late in summer the streams run yellow, Burst the bridges and spread into bays; When berries are black and peaches are mellow, And hills are hidden by rainy haze;

When the goldenrod is golden still, But the heart of the sunflower is darker and sadder; When the corn is in stacks on the slope of the hill, And slides o'er the path the striped adder;

When butterflies flutter from clover to thicket, Or wave their wings on the drooping leaf; When the breeze comes shrill with the call of the cricket, Grasshopper's rasp, and rustle of sheaf;

When high in the field the fern-leaves wrinkle, And brown is the grass where the mowers have mown; When low in the meadow the cow-bells tinkle, And small brooks crinkle o'er stock and stone;

When heavy and hollow the robin's whistle And shadows are deep in the heat of noon; When the air is white with the down o' the thistle, And the sky is red with the harvest moon;

O, then be chary, young Robert and Mary, No time let slip, not a moment wait! If the fiddle would play it must stop its tuning; And they who would wed must be done with their mooning; So let the churn rattle, see well to the cattle, And pile the wood by the barn-yard gate!

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]



TO 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 twined 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, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river shallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats [1795-1821]



ODE TO AUTUMN

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;— Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun, Oping the dusky eyelids of the South, Till shade and silence waken up as one, And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. Where are the merry birds?—Away, away, On panting wings through the inclement skies, Lest owls should prey Undazzled at noonday, And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the West, Blushing their last to the last sunny hours, When the mild Eve by sudden Night is pressed Like tearful Prosperine, snatched from her flowers, To a most gloomy breast. Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,— The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three On the mossed elm; three on the naked lime Trembling,—and one upon the old oak-tree! Where is the Dryad's immortality?— Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through In the smooth holly's green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard, The ants have brimmed their garners with ripe grain, And honey bees have stored The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells; The swallows all have winged across the main; But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. Alone, alone, Upon a mossy stone, She sits and reckons up the dead and gone, With the last leaves for a love-rosary, Whilst all the withered world looks drearily, Like a dim picture of the drowned past In the hushed mind's mysterious far away, Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded Under the languid downfall of her hair: She wears a coronal of flowers faded Upon her forehead, and a face of care;— There is enough of withered everywhere To make her bower,—and enough of gloom; There is enough of sadness to invite, If only for the rose that died, whose doom Is Beauty's,—she that with the living bloom Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light: There is enough of sorrowing, and quite Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,— Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl; Enough of fear and shadowy despair, To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

Thomas Hood [1799-1845]



ODE TO THE WEST WIND

I O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill;

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision—I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like withered, leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]



AUTUMN: A DIRGE

The warm sun is failing; the bleak wind is wailing; The bare boughs are sighing; the pale flowers are dying; And the Year 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 nipped worm is crawling; The rivers are swelling; the thunder is knelling For the Year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling; Come, months, come away; Put on white, black, and gray; Let your light sisters play— Ye, follow the bier Of the dead, cold Year, And make her grave green with tear on tear.

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]



AUTUMN

The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on.

Emily Dickinson [1830-1886]



"WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN"

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here— Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!— O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!... I don't know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me— I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

James Whitcomb Riley [1849-1916]



KORE

Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves, And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms, And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves. Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms, Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist, And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.

With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes, And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep, With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs, She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep; While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.

The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams; There was no sound amid the sacred boughs. Nor any mournful music in her streams: Only I saw the shadow on her brows, Only I knew her for the yearly slain, And wept, and weep until she come again.

Frederic Manning [18 —



OLD OCTOBER

Hail, old October, bright and chill, First freedman from the summer sun! Spice high the bowl, and drink your fill! Thank heaven, at last the summer's done!

Come, friend, my fire is burning bright, A fire's no longer out of place, How clear it glows! (there's frost to-night,) It looks white winter in the face.

You've been to "Richard" Ah! you've seen A noble play: I'm glad you went; But what on earth does Shakespeare mean By "winter of our discontent?"

Be mine the tree that feeds the fire! Be mine the sun knows when to set! Be mine the months when friends desire To turn in here from cold and wet!

The sentry sun, that glared so long O'erhead, deserts his summer post; Ay, you may brew it hot and strong: "The joys of winter"—come, a toast!

Shine on the kangaroo, thou sun! Make far New Zealand faint with fear! Don't hurry back to spoil our fun, Thank goodness, old October's here!

Thomas Constable [1812-1881]



NOVEMBER

When thistle-blows do lightly float About the pasture-height, And shrills the hawk a parting note, And creeps the frost at night, Then hilly ho! though singing so, And whistle as I may, There comes again the old heart pain Through all the livelong day.

In high wind creaks the leafless tree And nods the fading fern; The knolls are dun as snow-clouds be, And cold the sun does burn. Then ho, hollo! though calling so, I cannot keep it down; The tears arise unto my eyes, And thoughts are chill and brown.

Far in the cedars' dusky stoles, Where the sere ground-vine weaves, The partridge drums funereal rolls Above the fallen leaves. And hip, hip, ho! though cheering so, It stills no whit the pain; For drip, drip, drip, from bare-branch tip, I hear the year's last rain.

So drive the cold cows from the hill, And call the wet sheep in; And let their stamping clatter fill The barn with warming din. And ho, folk, ho! though it be so That we no more may roam, We still will find a cheerful mind Around the fire at home!

C. L. Cleaveland [18—? ]



NOVEMBER

Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear, As kings have heard, and tremble on their thrones; The old will feel the weight of mossy stones; The young alone will laugh and scoff at fear. It is the tread of armies marching near, From scarlet lands to lands forever pale; It is a bugle dying down the gale; It is the sudden gushing of a tear. And it is hands that grope at ghostly doors; And romp of spirit-children on the pave; It is the tender sighing of the brave Who fell, ah! long ago, in futile wars; It is such sound as death; and, after all, 'Tis but the forest letting dead leaves fall.

Mahlon Leonard Fisher [1874-



STORM FEAR

When the wind works against us in the dark, And pelts with snow The lower chamber window on the east, And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, The beast, "Come out! Come out!"— It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, no! I count our strength, Two and a child, Those of us not asleep subdued to mark How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,— How drifts are piled, Dooryard and road ungraded, Till even the comforting barn grows far away And my heart owns a doubt Whether 'tis in us to arise with day And save ourselves unaided.

Robert Frost [1875-



WINTER: A DIRGE

The wintry west extends his blast, And hail and rain does blaw; Or the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw: While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars frae bank to brae; And bird and beast in covert rest, And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," The joyless winter day. Let others fear,—to me more dear Than all the pride of May; The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join; The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine!