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I sit here and the earth is wrapped in snow,
And the cold air is thick with falling night:
I think of the still, dewy summer eves,

When cows came slowly sauntering up the lane,
Waiting to nibble at the juicy grass;

When the green earth was full of changing life,
When the warm wind blew soft, and slowly passed,
Caressing now and then some wayside flower,
Stopping to stir the tender maple-leaves,
And breathing all its fragrance on the air!
I think of the broad meadows, daisy-white,
With the long shade of some stray apple-tree
Falling across them, and the rustlings faint
When evening breezes shook along the grass.
I think of all the thousand summer sounds,-
The cricket's chirp, repeated far and near;
The sleepy note of robins in their nest;
The whippoorwill, whose sudden cry rang out,
Plaintive, yet strong, upon the startled air.
And so it was the summer twilight fell,
And deepened to the darkness of the night:
And now I lift my heart out of my dream
And see instead the pale, cold, dying lights,
The dull gray skies, the barren, snow-clad fields,
That come to us when winter evenings come.

DORA READ GOODALE,

Yet, though a sense of grief Comes with the falling leaf,

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whip

poorwill sounded

Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through And memory makes the summer doubly pleasant,

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Above the foamy bar,

AUTUMN.

A DIRGE.

THE autumn is old;
The sear leaves are flying;
He hath gathered up gold,
And now he is dying :
Old age, begin sighing!

The vintage is ripe ;
The harvest is heaping;
But some that have sowed
Have no riches for reaping:
Poor wretch, fall a-weeping!

-

The year's in the wane ;
There is nothing adorning ;
The night has no eve,
And the day has no morning;
Cold winter gives warning.

The rivers run chill;
The red sun is sinking;
And I am grown old,

And life is fast shrinking;
Here's enow for sad thinking!

THOMAS HOOD.

THE LATTER RAIN.

THE latter rain, - it falls in anxious haste
Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare,
Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste
As if it would each root's lost strength repair;
But not a blade grows green as in the spring ;
No swelling twig puts forth its thickening
leaves;

The robins only mid the harvests sing,
Pecking the grain that scatters from the sheaves;
the fruit all ripened

And hasten southward ere the skies are frowning. The rain falls still,

Now comes a fragrant breeze
Through the dark cedar-trees,

And round about my temples fondly lingers,
In gentle playfulness,
Like to the soft caress
Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.

drops,

It pierces chestnut-burr and walnut-shell; The furrowed fields disclose the yellow crops; Each bursting pod of talents used can tell; And all that once received the early rain Declare to man it was not sent in vain.

JONES VERY

THE AUTUMN.

THE autumn time is with us! Its approach
Was heralded, not many days ago,
By hazy skies that veiled the brazen sun,
And sea-like murmurs from the rustling corn,
And low-voiced brooks that wandered drowsily
By purpling clusters of the juicy grape,
Swinging upon the vine. And now, 't is here,
And what a change hath passed upon the face
Of Nature, where thy waving forests spread,
Then robed in deepest green! All through the
night

The subtle frost hath plied its mystic art,
And in the day the golden sun hath wrought
True wonders; and the wings of morn and even
Have touched with magic breath the changing

leaves.

And now, as wanders the dilating eye
Athwart the varied landscape circling far,
What gorgeousness, what blazonry, what pomp
Of colors, bursts upon the ravished sight!
Here, where the maple rears its yellow crest,
A golden glory; yonder, where the oak
Stands monarch of the forest, and the ash
Is girt with flame-like parasite, and broad
The dog-wood spreads beneath a rolling field
Of deepest crimson; and afar, where looms
The gnarled gum, a cloud of bloodiest red!

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

INDIAN SUMMER.

WHEN leaves grow sear all things take sombre hue; The wild winds waltz no more the woodside through,

And all the faded grass is wet with dew.

A gauzy nebula films the pensive sky,
The golden bee supinely buzzes by,

In silent flocks the bluebirds southward fly.

The forest's cheeks are crimsoned o'er with shame,
The cynic frost enlaces every lane,
The ground with scarlet blushes is aflame!

The one we love grows lustrous-eyed and sad, With sympathy too thoughtful to be glad, While all the colors round are running mad.

The sunbeams kiss askant the sombre hill,
The naked woodbine climbs the window-sill,
The breaths that noon exhales are faint and chill.

The ripened nuts drop downward day by day,
Sounding the hollow tocsin of decay.
And bandit squirrels smuggle them away.

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Winter, still I see

Many charms in thee,
Love thy chilly greeting,
Snow-storms fiercely beating,
And the dear delights

No dawn

No road

Of the long, long nights.

I view the muscular proportioned limb
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair,
As they designed to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,
Preposterous sight! the legs without the man.

From the German of LUDWIG HÖLTY. Trans The verdure of the plain lies buried deep

No sun

lation of CHARLES T. BROOKS.

NO!

no moon!

No morn

no noon

no dust

No sky

no proper time of day no earthly view

No distance looking blue —

Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not, like hungering man,
Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,

no street -no "t' other side the And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay.
way"

No end to any Row

No indications where the Crescents go-
No top to any steeple -

No recognitions of familiar people -
No courtesies for showing 'em
No knowing 'em!

No travelling at all -no locomotion,

No inkling of the way

No park

66

no notion

No go"-by land or ocean

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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!

THOMAS HOOD.

WINTER MORNING.

FROM "THE WINTER MORNING WALK:"
"THE TASK," BOOK V.

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,

He from the stack carves out the accustomed load,
Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the solid mass :
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away: no needless care
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned
The cheerful haunts of men, to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.

Shaggy and lean and shrewd with pointed ears,
And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur,
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk
Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;
Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy.

Now from the roost, or from the neighboring pale,
Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side,
Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call
The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,
Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge.
The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves
To seize the fair occasion. Well they eye
The scattered grain, and, thievishly resolved
To escape
the impending famine, often scared

Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray As oft return, a pert voracious kind.

Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance

Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the search of sunny nook,
Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned
To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut, and, wading at their head
With well-considered steps, seems to resent
His altered gait and stateliness retrenched.
How find the myriads, that in summer cheer

The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?
Earth yields them naught; the imprisoned worm
is safe

Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs
Lie covered close; and berry-bearing thorns,
That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose),
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
The long protracted rigor of the year
Thins all their numerous flocks.

holes

And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on :
The morning broke without a sun ;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,

In chinks and In starry flake, and pellicle,

Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
As instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die.

WILLIAM COWPER.

NEW ENGLAND IN WINTER.
FROM "SNOW-BOUND."

THE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Fleard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dauce of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow :

All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,

Or garden wall, or belt of wood;

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed.

A fenceless drift what once was road;

The bridle-post an old man sat

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;

The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy ?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about ;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led ;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked ;
The horned patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

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