THE FOREST-LEAVES IN AUTUMN.

FROM "THE CHRISTIAN YEAR."

Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun;
The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crown'd the eastern copse; and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief November day.

Now the tir'd hunter winds a parting note,
And Echo bids good-night from every glade;
Yet wait awhile, and on the calm leaves float
Each to his rest beneath the parent shade.

How like decaying life they seem to glide!

And yet no second spring have they in store; But where they fall forgotten, to abide

Is all their portion, and they ask no more.

Soon o'er their heads blithe April airs shall sing;

A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold;
The green buds glisten in the dews of spring,
And all be vernal rapture as of old.

Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,

In all the world of busy life around
No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky,
No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.

Man's portion is to die and rise again-

Yet he complains; while these unmurmuring part
With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain
As his when Eden held his virgin heart.

ΒΟΗΕΜΙΑΝ

ANCIENT SONG.

O ye forests, dark-green forests,
Miletinish forests!

Why in summer, and in winter,

Are ye green and blooming?
O! I would not weep and cry,
Nor torment my heart.

JOHN KEBLE.

But now tell me, good folk, tell me,
How should not I cry?

Ah! where is my dear father?

Woe! he lies deep buried.

Where my mother? O good mother!

O'er her grows the grass!

Brothers have I not, nor sisters,

And my lad is gone!

Translated by TALVI.

LANDSCAPE AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.

I wake, I rise; from end to end,

Of all the landscape underneath,
I find no place that doth not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend;

No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheep-walk up the windy wold;

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw,

That hears the latest linnet trill,
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill,
And haunted by the wrangling daw;

Nor rivulet trickling from the rock,
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves

From left to right through meadowy curves,

That feed the mothers of the flock;

But each has pleased a kindred eye,

And each reflects a kindlier day;
And leaving these, to pass away

I think once more he seems to die.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed

The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine is, too, the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed!

W. WORDSWorth, 1770-1850.

So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year: be calm and mild,
Trembling hours; she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January gray is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;

February bears the bier

March, with grief, doth howl and rave;

And April weeps-but, O ye hours!

Follow with May's fairest flowers.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792-1822.

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM

ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY.

Sweet flower! that peeping from thy russet stem,
Unfoldest timidly (for in strange sort

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month
Hath borrowed Zephyr's voice, and gazed on thee
With blue, voluptuous eye); alas, poor flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year,
Perchance escaped its unknown polar cave.
E'en now the keen north-east is on its way,
Flower thou must perish! Shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too, too rapid growth?

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE, 1770-1849.

FEBRUARY.

Dip down upon the northern shore,

O sweet new year, delaying long,
Thou dost 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 noons?

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