Field Flowers. YE field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 't is true, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight, And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight, Like treasures of silver and gold. I love you for lulling me back into dreams Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams, And of birchen glades breathing their balm, While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote, And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon's note Made music that sweetened the calm. Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find, Even now, what affections the violet awakes! What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks, Earth's cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear, Had scathed my existence's bloom; Once I welcome you more, in life's passionless stage, Life. CAMPBELL. THE Lark has sung his carol in the sky; The babe, the sleeping image of his sire. A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail The day again, and gladness fill the vale; So soon the child a youth, the youth a man, Eager to run the race his fathers ran. Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin; The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled, 66 "'T was on these knees he sate so oft, and smiled." And soon again shall music swell the breeze; And once, alas, nor in a distant hour, He rests in holy earth with them that went before. And such is Human Life; so gliding on, It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone! To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour! ROGERS. [From "Human Life."] To Autumn. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run ; To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook, Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; The Cry of the Children. 66 “ φεῦ, φεῦ, τι προσδεςκεσθε με ομμασιν, τεκνα.”. MEDEA. I. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, KEATS. |