The green field sleeps in the sun; Are at work with the strongest; Their heads never raising; Like an army defeated On the top of the bare hill; The plough-boy is whooping anon There's joy in the mountains; The rain is over and gone! - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. II. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. UNDER the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats. And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 12. EVENING. IF aught of oaten stop or pastoral song Thy springs, and dying gales; O Nymph reserved,—while now the bright-hair'd sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed, Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, To breathe some soften'd strain Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit; As musing slow I hail Thy genial love return. For when thy folding-star arising shows Who slept in buds the day, And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene; Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustering winds or driving rain. Views wilds and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires; The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light; While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train And rudely rends thy robes; So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favorite name! -WILLIAM COLLINS. 13. EVENING SONG. SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair, Of these pastures, where they come, And let your dogs lie loose without, away; Or the crafty thievish fox Of our great god. Sweetest slumbers, Thus I end my evening's knell. -JOHN FLETCHER. 14. TO DIANA. HAIL, beauteous Dian, queen of shades, That dwell'st beneath these shadowy glades, Mistress of all those beauteous maids That are by her allowed. Virginity we all profess, Abjure the worldly vain excess, And will to Dian yield no less Than we to her have vowed. The shepherds, satyrs, nymphs, and fawns, |