A NOOK within the forest; overhead

The branches arch, and shape a pleasant bower,

Breaking white cloud, blue sky and sunshine bright, Into pure ivory and sapphire spots,

And flecks of gold; a soft cool emerald tint
Colours the air, as though the delicate leaves
Emitted self-born light. What splendid walls
And what a gorgeous roof carved by the hand
Of glorious Nature! Here the spruce thrusts in
Its bristling plume, tipp'd with its pale green points;
The scallop'd beech leaf, and the birch's cut
Into fine ragged edges, interlace:

While here and there, through clefts, the laurel lifts
Its snowy chalices half-brimm'd with dew,

As though to hoard it for the haunting elves
The moonlight calls to this their festal hall,
A thick, rich, grassy carpet clothes the earth,
Sprinkled with autumn leaves. The fern displays
Its fluted wreath beaded beneath with drops

Of richest brown; the wild-rose spreads its breast
Of delicate pink, and the o'erhanging fir

Has dropp'd its dark, long cone.

The scorching glare

Without, makes this green nest a grateful haunt
For summer's radiant things; the butterfly
Fluttering within and resting on some flower,
Fans his rich velvet form; the toiling bee
Shoots by, with sounding hum and mist-like wings;
The robin perches on the bending spray

With shrill, quick chirp; and like a flake of fire
The redbird seeks the shelter of the leaves.
And now and then a flutter overhead

In the thick green, betrays some wandering wing
Coming and going, yet conceal'd from sight.
A shrill, loud outery-on yon highest bough
Sits the gray squirrel, in his burlesque wrath
Stamping and chattering fiercely: now he drops
A hoarded nut, then at my smiling gaze
Buries himself within the foliage.

The insect tribe are here; the ant toils on
With its white burthen; in its netted web

Gray glistening o'er the bush, the spider lurks,
A close-crouch'd ball, out-darting as a hum

Tells its trapp'd prey, and looping quick its threads,
Chains into helplessness the buzzing wings.

The wood-tick taps its tiny muffled drum
To the shrill cricket-fife, and swelling loud,
The grasshopper its swelling bugle winds.
Those breaths of Nature, the light fluttering airs
Like gentle respirations, come and go,

Lift on its crimson stem the maple-leaf,
Displaying its white lining underneath,
And sprinkle from the tree-tops golden rain
Of sunshine on the velvet sward below.

Such nooks as this are common in the woods:
And all these sights and sounds the commonest
In Nature when she wears her summer prime.
Yet by them pass not lightly: to the wise
They tell the beauty and the harmony

Of e'en the lowliest things that God hath made.
That His familiar earth and sky are full

Of His ineffable power and majesty;

That in the humble objects, seen too oft

To be regarded, is such wondrous grace,

The art of man is vain to imitate;

That the low flower our careless foot treads down
Is a rich shrine of incense delicate,

And radiant beauty, and that God hath form'd
All, from the cloud-wreath'd mountain, to the grain
Of silver sand the bubbling spring casts up

With deepest forethought and severest care.
And thus these noteless lovely things are types
Of his perfection and divinity.

ROBERT BROWNING.

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA.

I WONDER do you feel to-day

As I have felt, since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalised me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path,) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it: first it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange-cup amassed

Five beetles,-blind and green they grope

Among the honey-meal,-and last

Everywhere on the grassy slope

I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

Such life there, through such lengths of hours,

Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,

Such letting Nature have her way While Heaven looks from its towers.

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above.
How is it under our control

To love or not to love?