The Winter Walk at Noon.

THE night was winter in his roughest mood,
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,

And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,

And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendour of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale,

And through the trees I view the embattled tower
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread

The walk still verdant under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through all its length
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed,
And intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content

With slender notes, and more than half suppressed.
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice,

That tinkle in the withered leaves below.

Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence.

Where now the vital energy that moved,
While summer was, the pure and subtile lymph
Through the imperceptible meandering veins
Of leaf and flower? It sleeps; and th' icy touch
Of unprolific winter has impressed

A cold stagnation on the intestine tide.

But let the months go round, a few short months,
And all shall be restored. These naked shoots,
Barren as lances, among which the wind
Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes,

Shall put their graceful foliage on again,

And more aspiring, and with ampler spread,

Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost.
Then, each in its peculiar honours clad

Shall publish even to the distant eye
Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich
In streaming gold; syringa, ivory pure;

The scentless and the scented rose; this red,
And of an humbler growth, the other tall,
And throwing up into the darkest gloom
Of neighbouring cypress or more sable yew
Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind severs from the broken wave;
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal, as if
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved

Which hue she most approved, she chose them all;
Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never-cloying odours, early and late;
Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm
Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods,
That scarce a leaf appears; mezereon too,
Though leafless, well attired and thick beset
With blushing wreaths, investing every spray;
Althea with the purple eye; the broom,
Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloyed,
Her blossoms; and luxuriant above all
The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,
The deep dark green of her unvarnished leaf
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more
The bright profusion of her scattered stars.

COWPER. [From "The Task."]

Autumn in Scotland.

66

FROM THE CHILD OF THE ISLANDS."

BROWN Autumn cometh, with her liberal hand
Binding the harvest in a thousand sheaves;
A yellow glory brightens o'er the land,

Shines on thatched corners and low cottage-eaves,
And gilds with cheerful light the fading leaves:

Beautiful, even here, on hill and dale;

More lovely yet, where Scotland's soil receives The varied rays her wooded mountains hail, With hues to which our faint and soberer tints are pale.

For there the scarlet rowan seems to mock

The red sea coral-berries, leaves, and all; Light swinging from the moist green shining rock Which beds the foaming torrents turbid fall; And there the purple cedar, grandly tall, Lifts its crowned head and sun-illumined stem; And larch (soft drooping like a maiden's pall) Bends o'er the lake, that seems a sapphire gem Dropt from the hoary hill's gigantic diadem.

And far and wide the glorious heather blooms,
Its regal mantle o'er the mountains spread;
Wooing the bee with honey-sweet perfumes,

By many a viewless wild flower richly shed;
Up-springing 'neath the glad exulting tread
Of eager climbers, light of heart and limb;
Or yielding, soft, a fresh elastic bed,

When evening shadows gather, faint and dim,
And sun-forsaken crags grow old, and gaunt, and grim.

Oh, Land! first seen when life lay all unknown,
Like an unvisited country o'er the wave,
Which now my travelled heart looks back upon,
Making each sunny path, each gloomy cave,
With here a memory, and there a grave:—

Land of romance and beauty; noble land

Of Bruce and Wallace; land where, vainly brave, Ill-fated Stuart made his final stand,

Ere yet the shivered sword fell hopeless from his hand.

I love you! I remember you! though years
Have fleeted o'er the hills my spirit knew,
Whose wild uncultured heights the plough forbears,
Whose broomy hollows glisten in the dew.
Still shines the calm light with as rich a hue
Along the wooded valleys stretched below?

Still gleams my lone lake's unforgotten blue?
Oh, land! although unseen, how well I know
The glory of your face in this autumnal glow!

I know your deep glens, where the eagles cry;
I know the freshness of your mountain breeze,
Your brooklets, gurgling downward ceaselessly,

The singing of your birds among the trees,
Mingling confused a thousand melodies!
I know the lone rest of your birchen bowers,

Where the soft murmur of the working bees
Goes droning past, with scent of heather flowers,
And lulls the heart to dream even in its waking hours.