I WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company;

I gazed and gazed — but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

DAFFODILS.

FAIR daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained its noon.
Stay, stay,

Until the hastening day

Has run

But to the even-song;

And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay as you,
We have as short a spring;

THE VOICE OF THE GRASS.

HERE I come creeping, creeping everywhere;

By the dusty roadside,

On the sunny hillside,
Close by the noisy brook,

In every shady nook,

I come creeping, creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
All round the open door,
Where sit the aged poor;

Here where the children play,
In the bright and merry May,

I come creeping, creeping everywhere.
Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
In the noisy city street

My pleasant face you'll meet,
Cheering the sick at heart
Toiling his busy part,

Silently creeping, creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
You cannot see me coming,

Nor hear my low sweet humming;
For in the starry night,

And the glad morning light,

I come quietly creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
More welcome than the flowers
In summer's pleasant hours;
The gentle cow is glad,

And the merry bird not sad,
To see me creeping, creeping everywhere.
Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
When you're numbered with the dead
In your still and narrow bed,
In the happy spring I'll come
And deck your silent home,

Creeping, silently creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; My humble song of praise

Most joyfully I raise

To Him at whose command
I beautify the land,

Creeping, silently creeping everywhere.

SARAH ROBERTS.

THE IVY GREEN.

O, A DAINTY plant is the ivy green,

That creepeth o'er ruins old!

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

In his cell so lone and cold.

Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

To pleasure his dainty whim;

And the mouldering dust that years have made Is a merry meal for him.

Creeping where no life is seen,

A rare old plant is the ivy green.

ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south-wind searches for the flowers whose

fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the

stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the

forests cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;

Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE USE OF FLOWERS.

GOD might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small,

The oak-tree and the cedar-tree,

Without a flower at all.

We might have had enough, enough

For every want of ours,

For luxury, medicine, and toil,

And yet have had no flowers.