In the country on every side,
Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide
Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumber'd* head,
With their dilated† nostrils spread,
They silently inhale

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
Of the incessant rain.

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,
As she came by a hawthorn tree,
As full of flowers as might be seen,
She marvell'd to see the tree so green.

At last she asked of this tree,
"How came this freshness unto thee,
And ev'ry branch so fair and clean?
I marvel that you grow so green."

The tree made answer by-and-by,
"I have cause to grow triumphantly;
The sweetest dew that e'er is seen,
Doth fall on me to keep me green."

"Yea," quoth the maid, "but where you grow,
You stand at hand for every blow,
Of every man for to be seen;

I marvel that you grow so green."

"Though many a one take flowers from me,
And many a branch out of my tree,
I have such store they will not be seen,
For more and more my twigs grow green."

"But how, an'* they chance to cut thee down,
And carry thy branches into the town ?"
"Then they will never more be seen
To grow again so fresh and green."

* An', if.

THE ROSE.

THE rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower,
Which Mary to Anna conveyed;

The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower,
And weighed down its beautiful head.

The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet,
And it seem'd, to a fanciful view,

To weep for the buds it had left with regret
On the flourishing bush where it grew.

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was
For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd;
And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas!
I snapp'd it—it fell to the ground!

And such, I exclaimed, is the pitiless part
Some act by the delicate mind;
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart
Already to sorrow resign'd.

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,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,

But you may stay yet here awhile,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

Ан, who the melodies of morn can tell!
The wild brook babbling down the mountain's side;
The lowing herd, the sheep-fold's simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd, din descried
In the lone valley; echoing far and wide
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide;
The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark;
Crown'd with her pail the tripping milk-maid sings;
The whistling ploughman stalks a-field; and hark!
Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings;
Thro' rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs;
Slow tolls the village bell the drowsy hour;
The partridge bursts away on whirring wings;
Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower,
And shrill lark carols clear from his aërial tower.

Beattie.

THE POPLAR FIELD.

THE poplars are felled, farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade !*
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on its bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view
Of

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;
And the scene where his melody charm'd me before,
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive* years are all hasting away,
And I must myself lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

The change both my heart and my fancy employs:
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys;

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,
I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps,* a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my bank I fret
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

*Fugitive, fleeting. †Thorp, village.