LOWERS.

LOWERS, flowers everywhere!
How they scent the Summer air
With a fragrance rich and rare.

Bright they bloom and do not shrink
By the rushy river brink,

Where the birds fly down to drink.

And they colour mountains steep,
Safe beyond the farthest leap

Of the nimble mountain sheep.

And they hide amid the grass,
Tall and trembling, where, alas!
Still the subtle serpents pass.

Lonely to the crag they cling,
Where the surge is echoing,
And the sea bird prunes its wing.

Thick they cluster by the side
Of hot roads all dusty dried,
Smiling sweetly open-eyed.

Tenderly they bow their head
Over graves where lie the dead,
And soft raining tears are shed.

Ah, He told us long ago
That the flowers might bestow
Knowledge it were good to know:

AT THE SMITHY DOOR.

OWEVER dull and sleepy our village may have been, there was always life and stir at the blacksmith's forge. On a sultry July afternoon, when the only sounds to be heard were the drowsy hum of a blue-bottle in a corner of the room, or the angry buzzing of a bewildered wasp against the window-pane, one had but to turn round the corner of "the street" and find amusement and occupation at the door of our local Vulcan. The sharp musical ring of hammers was always to be heard, and the gossip of the country side was in constant flow. The waggoner from Mobberley has brought a couple of his horses to be shod. Farmer Morris, of the Cow-trees, has ridden over to get a new fastening for his barn-door. Young Squire Jenkins wants a dog-collar mended. Their horses are safely tethered outside under the trees, quietly champing their oats and chopped straw. Pert, saucy sparrows are enjoying a banquet from the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table: for, be it observed that we cannot feed ourselves or our dependents without giving the wild things of Nature a share. If we sow our corn, the birds of the air will help themselves to a portion. He who cares for the sparrows, claims at least a tithe for them, and the veriest miser cannot withhold it, if he would. Through some hole in the sack our superfluity escapes to feed them. And so round the tethered horses of the farmers there assembles a levée of hungry dependents, who gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost. Lounging in the door-way are the customers waiting till Vulcan, and his attendant Cyclops, have finished the job in hand.

A village smithy is always a study for the artist. What masses of light and shade! How the colours come out in the light of the forge, as the flames leap up at the fierce blast of the bellows and the sparks fly from the anvil! But Longfellow has made the scene his own :—

"Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.