No park, no ring-no afternoon gentility--
No company, or nobility—

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member-
No shade-no shine-no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds.
November!

T. HOOD.

SONNET.

NOVEMBER, 1792.

There is strange music in the stirring wind
When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone
To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone,
Whose ancient trees on the rough slope-reclined
Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sear.

If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,
Thou late hast pass'd the happier hours of spring,
With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;
Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn

Or eve thou'st shared, to distant scenes shall stray.

O spring, return! return, auspicious May!
But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,
If she return not with thy cheering ray,

Who from these shades is gone, gone far away!

SONG.

DECEMBER.

I.

REV. WILLIAM L. BOWLES.

A spirit haunts the year's last hours,
Dwelling amidst these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;

For at eventide, listening earnestly,

At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,

In the walks;

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks of the moldering flowers; Heavily hangs the broad sun-flower

O'er its grave, the earth so chilly;

Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

II.

The air is damp, and hushed, and close,

As a rich man's room, where he taketh repose
An hour before death;

My very heart faints, and my whole soul grieves

At the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves,

And the breath

Of the fading edges of box beneath, and the year's last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sun-flower

Over its grave, the earth so chilly;

Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

XIX.

The Schoolmistress.

NE does not often meet with Shenstone's "Schoolmistress"

ONE

now-a-days, and as every year makes her more of a rarity, we have given her a place in our rustic group. There appears to be no doubt that Shenstone, who learned to read from the old dame who taught the village school at HalesOwen, his native hamlet, sketched from life, when he drew the old "Schoolmistress," her blue apron, her single hen, and the noisy little troop about her. To us, however, in these very different days, the simple rustic sketch assumes something of the dignity of an historical picture.

The little thatched cottage of the dame is still to be seen near Hales-Owen, as well as the gabled roof of the Leasowes, under which the poet was born. The old homes of England, whether cot or castle, are seldom leveled by the hand of man, and they long remain as links between successive generations.

A few of the stanzas have been omitted, in order to bring the poem within the limits of this volume.

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.

In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to Fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire,

A matron old, whom we Schoolmistress name,
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame;
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame,
And ofttimes, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.
And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree,

Which Learning near her little dome did stowe,
Whilom a twig of small regard to see,

Though now so wide its waving branches flow,
And work the simple vassals mickle woe;

For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew,
But their limbs shudder'd, and their pulse beat low;
And as they look'd, they found their horror grew,
And shap'd it into rods, and tingled at the view.
So have I seen (who has not, may conceive)
A lifeless phantom near a garden plac'd ;

So doth it wanton birds of peace bereave,

Of sport, of song, of pleasure, of repast;
They start, they stare, they wheel, they look aghast;
Sad servitude! such comfortless annoy
May no bold Briton's riper age e'er taste!
Ne superstition clog his dance of joy,
Ne vision empty, vain, his native bliss destroy.

Near to this dome is found a patch so green,
On which the tribe their gambols do display;
And at the door imprisoning-board is seen,

Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray,
Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day!

The noises intermix'd, which thence resound,

Do Learning's little tenement betray;

Where sits the dame, disguis'd in look profound, And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblem right meet, of decency does yield;