Robin, robin redbreast,

O Robin dear!

And what will this poor robin do? For pinching days are near.

The fire-side for the cricket,

The wheat-stack for the mouse, When trembling night-winds whistle And moan all round the house. The frosty ways like iron,

The branches plumed with snow,— Alas! in winter dead and dark,

Where can poor Robin go? Robin, robin redbreast,

O Robin dear!

And a crumb of bread for Robin,

His little breast to cheer.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

FIDELITY.

A BARKING Sound the shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts,—and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks;

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy-
With something, as the shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry;

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout nor whistle strikes his ear.
What is the creature doing here?
It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land,-
From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak
In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud,
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, awhile
The shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the dog
As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground.
The appalled discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear.

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came; Remembered, too, the very day

On which the traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!

A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.

The dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,

91

This dog had been through three months space

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain that, since the day

When this ill-fated traveller died,

The dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master's side.

How nourished here through such long time
He knows who gave that love sublime,
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTIL

TO MEADOWS.

YE have been fresh and green;
Ye have been filled with flowers;

And ye the walks have been

Where maids have spent their hours

Ye have beheld where they
With wicker arks did come,
To kiss and bear away

The richer cowslips home;

You've heard them sweetly sing, And seen them in a round; Each virgin, like the Spring, With honeysuckles crowned.

But now we see none here Whose silvery feet did tread, And with dishevelled hair Adorned this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent

Your stock, and needy grown, You're left here to lament

Your poor estates alone.

ROBERT HERRICK.

THE HUSBANDMAN.

EARTH, of man the bounteous mother, Feeds him still with corn and wine; He who best would aid a brother, Shares with him these gifts divine.

Many a power within her bosom,

Noiseless, hidden, works beneath; Hence are seed, and leaf, and blossom,

Golden ear and clustered wreath.

These to swell with strength and beauty Is the royal task of man;

Man's a king; his throne is duty,

Since his work on earth began.

Bud and harvest, bloom and vintageThese, like man, are fruits of earth; Stamped in clay, a heavenly mintage,

All from dust receive their birth.

Barn and mill, and wine-vat's treasures, Earthly goods for earthly livesThese are Nature's ancient pleasures; These her child from her derives.

What the dream, but vain rebelling, If from earth we sought to flee? "T is our stored and ample dwelling; 'Tis from it the skies we see.

Wind and frost, and hour and season,

Land and water, sun and shadeWork with these, as bids thy reason, For they work thy toil to aid.

Sow thy seed, and reap in gladness!
Man himself is all a seed;
Hope and hardship, joy and sadness-
Slow the plant to ripeness lead.

JOHN STERLING.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN.

THOυ blossom, bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night;

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.
Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged Year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

CORNFIELDS.

WHEN on the breath of autumn breeze
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating like an idle thought

The fair white thistle-down,
Oh then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest hill!

What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,
And see all round on sun-lit slopes
The piled-up stacks of corn;

And send the fancy wandering o'er All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.

I feel the day--I see the field,

The quivering of the leaves, And good old Jacob and his house Binding the yellow sheaves; And at this very hour I seem To be with Joseph in his dream.

I see the fields of Bethlehem,

And reapers many a one, Bending unto their sickles' strokeAnd Boaz looking on; And Ruth, the Moabite so fair, Among the gleaners stooping there.

Again I see a little child,

His mother's sole delight,God's living gift of love unto

The kind good Shunammite; To mortal pangs I see him yield,

And the lad bear him from the field.

The sun-bathed quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,
That eighteen hundred years ago
Were full of corn, I see;

And the dear Saviour takes His way
Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath day.

Oh, golden fields of bending corn,

How beautiful they seem! The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves, To me are like a dream. The sunshine and the very air Seem of old time, and take me there.

MARY HCWITT.

AUTUMN FLOWERS.

THOSE few pale Autumn flowers,
How beautiful they are!
Than all that went before,
Than all the Summer store,
How lovelier ar!

And why?-They are the last!

The last! the last! the last! Oh! by that little word How many thoughts are stirred That whisper of the past!

Pale flowers! pale perishing flowers!

Ye 're types of precious things;
Types of those bitter moments,
That flit, like life's enjoyments,
On rapid, rapid wings:

Last hours with parting dear ones
(That Time the fastest spends),
Last tears in silence shed,
Last words half uttered,

Last looks of dying friends.

Who but would fain compreys

A life into a day,—
The last day spent with one
Who, ere the morrow's sun,

Must leave us, and for aye?

O precious, precious moments!
Pale flowers! ye 're types of those;
The saddest, sweetest, dearest,
Because, like those, the nearest
To an eternal close.

Pale flowers! pale perishing flowers! I woo your gentle breath

I leave the Summer rose

For younger, blither brows;

Tell me of change and death!

CAROLINE BOWLES SOUTHEY.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

98

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely

ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard,

though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by

the stream no more.

In the green desert-and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.
Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear that marks my weapon's gleam
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;
The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane

Fling their huge arms across my way— Gray, old, and cumbered with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here-

With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,
And smoke-streams gushing up the sky.

I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged Past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless Future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams-my steed obeys, Plunges, and bears me through the tide : Wide are these woods-I thread the maze

Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. I hunt till day's last glimmer dies

O'er woody vale and grassy height; And kind the voice and glad the eyes That welcome my return at night. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,

Farewell to the mountains high covered with

snow;

Farewell to the straths and green valleye below;

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

RISE!

ROBERT BURNS.

THE HUNTER'S SONG.

Sleep no more! 'Tis a noble morn. The dews hang thick on the fringed thorn, And the frost shrinks back, like a beaten hound,

Under the steaming, steaming ground.
Behold, where the billowy clouds flow by,
And leave us alone in the clear gray sky!
Our horses are ready and steady.—So, ho!
I'm gone, like a dart from the Tartar's bow.
Hark, hark!-Who calleth the maiden Morn
From her sleep in the woods and the stubble
corn?

The horn, the horn!
The merry, sweet ring of the hunter's horn.

Now, through the copse where the fox is found,

And over the stream at a mighty bound,
And over the high lands, and over the low,
O'er furrows, o'er meadows, the hunters go!
Away!-as a hawk flies full at his prey,
So flieth the hunter, away,-away!
From the burst at the cover till set of sun,
When the red fox dies, and—the day is done!
Hark, hark!- What sound on the wind is

borne ?

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

The horn, the horn!

The merry, bold voice of the hunter's horn.