In the country on every side, Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide To the dry grass and the drier grain In the furrowed land The toilsome and patient oxen stand; The clover-scented gale, And the vapors that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil. For this rest in the furrow after toil Their large and lustrous eyes Seem to thank the Lord, More than man's spoken word. Near at hand, From under the sheltering trees, The farmer sees His pastures and his fields of grain, * Yoke-encumbered, the weight of the yoke (wooden beam) oppress ing the head. Dilated, wide-spread. Lustrous, sparkling. As they bend their tops To the numberless beating drops He counts it as no sin That he sees therein Only his own thrift and gain. Longfellow. THE HAWTHORN TREE. It was a maid of my country, At last she asked of this tree, The tree made answer by-and-by, "Yea," quoth the maid, "but where you grow, I marvel that you grow so green." "Though many a one take flowers from me, "But how, an'* they chance to cut thee down, * An', if. THE ROSE. THE rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower, The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet, To weep for the buds it had left with regret I hastily seized it, unfit as it was And such, I exclaimed, is the pitiless part This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, Might have bloom'd with its owner awhile; And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be followed perhaps by a smile. Cowper. TO BLOSSOMS. FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree, But you may stay yet here awhile, What! were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, Ан, who the melodies of morn can tell! The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark; Beattie. THE POPLAR FIELD. THE poplars are felled, farewell to the shade, Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view my favorite field, and the bank where they grew; And now in the grass behold they are laid, And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade. *Colonnade, a range of columns; here fig. for avenue of trees. The blackbird has fled to another retreat, Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat; My fugitive* years are all hasting away, The change both my heart and my fancy employs: Short-liv'd as we are, yet our pleasures we see Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we. Cowper. THE BROOK. I COME from haunts of coot and hern, And sparkle out among the fern, By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges; Till last by Philip's farm I flow I chatter over stony ways, With many a curve my bank I fret And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. *Fugitive, fleeting. †Thorp, village. |