And to the skies exhales it back again.

So the soul, that drop, that ray,
Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flower be seen,
Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,
And, recollecting its own light,

Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express
The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away;
So the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day.

Dark beneath, but bright above;
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go!
How girt and ready to ascend!
Moving but on a point below,

It all about does upwards bend.
Such did the manna's sacred dew distil,
White and entire, although congealed and chill,
Congealed on earth, but does, dissolving, run
Into the glories of the Almighty sun.

ANDREW MARVELL

Seeking the food he eats,

And pleased with what he gets,

Come hither, come hither, come hither · Here shall he see

No enemy,

But winter and rough weather.

JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note,
that I made yesterday in despite of my invention.
AMIENS. And I'll sing it.
JAQ. Thus it goes:-

If it do come to pass,
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease,
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame
Here shall he see

Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

AMI. What's that "ducdame"?

JAQ. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.

SHAKESPEARE.

NATURE.

THE bubbling brook doth leap when I come by,
Because my feet find measure with its call;
The birds know when the friend they love is nigh,
For I am known to them, both great and small.
The flower that on the lonely hillside grows
Expects me there when spring its bloom has given;
And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows,
And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven;
For he who with his Maker walks aright,
Shall be their lord as Adam was before;
His ear shall catch each sound with new delight,
Each object wear the dress that then it wore;
And he, as when erect in soul he stood,
Hear from his Father's lips that all is good.

JONES VERY.

THE GREENWOOD.
O, WHEN 't is summer weather,
And the yellow bee, with fairy sound,
The waters clear is humming round,
And the cuckoo sings unseen,
And the leaves are waving green,
O, then 't is sweet,
In some retreat,

To hear the murmuring dove,

With those whom on earth alone we love, And to wind through the greenwood together.

But when 't is winter weather,

And crosses grieve,
And friends deceive,
And rain and sleet
The lattice beat, -

-

O, then 't is sweet To sit and sing

Of the friends with whom, in the days of spring, We roamed through the greenwood together.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

RETIREMENT.

INSCRIPTION IN A HERMITAGE.

BENEATH this stony roof reclined,
I soothe to peace my pensive mind;
And while, to shade my lowly cave,
Embowering elms their umbrage wave,

And while the maple dish is mine, –
The beechen cup, unstained with wine,
I scorn the gay licentious crowd,
Nor heed the toys that deck the proud.
Within my limits, lone and still,
The black bird pipes in artless trill;
Fast by my couch, congenial guest,
The wren has wove her mossy nest;
From busy scenes and brighter skies,
To lurk with innocence, she flies,
Here hopes in safe repose to dwell,
Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.
At morn I take my customed round,
To mark how buds yon shrubby mound,
And every opening primrose count,
That trimly paints my blooming mount;
Or o'er the sculptures, quaint and rude,
That grace my gloomy solitude,

I teach in winding wreaths to stray
Fantastic ivy's gadding spray.

At eve, within yon studious nook,
I ope my brass-embossed book,
Portrayed with many a holy deed

Of martyrs, crowned with heavenly meed.
Then, as my taper waxes dim,
Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn,
And, at the close, the gleams behold
Of parting wings, be-dropt with gold.

While such pure joys my bliss create,
Who but would smile at guilty state?
Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray;
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage?

THOMAS WARTON.

COME TO THESE SCENES OF PEACE.

COME to these scenes of peace,
Where, to rivers murmuring,
The sweet birds all the summer sing,
Where cares and toil and sadness cease!
Stranger, does thy heart deplore
Friends whom thou wilt see no more?
Does thy wounded spirit prove
Pangs of hopeless, severed love?
Thee the stream that gushes clear,
Thee the birds that carol near,
Shall soothe, as silent thou dost lie
And dream of their wild lullaby;
Come to bless these scenes of peace,
Where cares and toil and sadness cease.
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots:
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows!
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses:

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

GRONGAR HILL.

[The Vale of the Towy embraces, in its winding course of firteen miles, some of the loveliest scenery of South Wales. If it be less cultivated than the Vale of Usk, its woodland views are mere romantic and frequent. The neighborhood is historic and poetic ground. From Grongar Hill the eye discovers traces of a Roman Camp; Golden Grove, the home of Jeremy Taylor, is on the opposite side of the river; Merlin's chair recalls Spenser; and a farm-house near the foot of Llangumnor Hill brings back the memory of its once genial occupant, Richard Steele. Spenser places the cave of Merlin among the dark woods of Dinevawr.]

SILENT nymph, with curious eye!
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man,
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings,
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale,
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister Muse.
Now, while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky,
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made,
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rili,
Sat upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head,

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood,

Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,

Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his checkered sides I wind,

And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves and grottos where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal.
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,
Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise.

Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow;
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapors intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show
In all the hues of heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.
Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes :
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,

The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;
And beyond, the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,
Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye;
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood:
His sides are clothed with waving wood;
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps ;
So both, a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.
'T is now the raven's bleak abode;
'T is now the apartment of the toad ;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there fall
Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered wall;
Yet Time has seen that lifts the low
And level lays the lofty brow

Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state.
But transient is the smile of Fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers, how they run
Through woods and meads, in shade and sun
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay
To disperse our cares away.

Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view!
The fountain's fall, the river's flow;
The woody valleys, warm and low;
The windy summit, wild and high,
Roughly rushing on the sky;
The pleasant seat, the ruined tower,
The naked rock, the shady bower ;
The town and village, dome and farm, -
Each gives each a double charm,
As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

See on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges lie;
What streaks of meadow cross the eye!
A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;
So we mistake the Future's face,
Eyed through Hope's deluding glass ;
As yon summits, soft and fair,
Clad in colors of the air,
Which to those who journey near,
Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.

O, may I with myself agree, And never covet what I see; Content me with an humble shade, My passions tamed, my wishes laid; For while our wishes wildly roll, We banish quiet from the soul. "T is thus the busy beat the air, And misers gather wealth and care. Now, even now, my joys run high, As on the mountain turf I lie ; While the wanton Zephyr sings, And in the vale perfumes his wings; While the waters murmur deep; While the shepherd charms his sheep; While the birds unbounded fly,

And with music fill the sky,

Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Search for Peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor.

In vain you search; she is not here!
In vain you search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with Pleasure, close allied,
Ever by each other's side;
And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills,
Far marked with the courses of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear

wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

ROBERT BURNS.

THE SHADED WATER.

WHEN that my mood is sad, and in the noise And bustle of the crowd I feel rebuke,

I turn my footsteps from its hollow joys And sit me down beside this little brook;

The waters have a music to mine ear It glads me much to hear.

It is a quiet glen, as you may see,

Shut in from all intrusion by the trees,
That spread their giant branches, broad and free,
The silent growth of many centuries;
And make a hallowed time for hapless moods,
A sabbath of the woods.

Few know its quiet shelter, none, like me,
Do seek it out with such a fond desire,
Poring in idlesse mood on flower and tree,

And listening as the voiceless leaves respire, When the far-travelling breeze, done wandering, Rests here his weary wing.

And all the day, with fancies ever new,

And sweet companions from their boundless

store,

Of merry elves bespangled all with dew,

Watching their wild but unobtrusive play, I fling the hours away.

Fantastic creatures of the old-time lore,

A gracious couch - the root of an old oak
Whose branches yield it moss and canopy -
Is mine, and, so it be from woodman's stroke
Secure, shall never be resigned by me;
It hangs above the stream that idly flies,
Heedless of any eyes.

There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent,
Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour,

While every sense on earnest mission sent,

Returns, thought laden, back with bloom and flower

Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil, A profitable toil.

And still the waters trickling at my feet

Wind on their way with gentlest melody, Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat, Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by, Yet not so rudely as to send one sound Through the thick copse around.

Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees,

Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, pressed
On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries,
And with awakened vision upward bent,
I watch the firmament.

How like its sure and undisturbed retreat,
Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm-
To the pure waters trickling at my feet

The bending trees that overshade my form! So far as sweetest things of earth may seem Like those of which we dream.