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Oft, in the sunless April day,

Thy early smile has stayed my walk, But midst the gorgeous blooms of May, I passed thee on thy humble stalk.

So they, who climb to wealth, forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them-but I regret

That I should ape the ways of pride.

And when again the genial hour
Awakes the painted tribes of light,
I'll not o'erlook the modest flower
That made the woods of April bright.

THE DAISY.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

There is a flower, a little flower,
With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field
In gay but quick succession shine;
Race after race their honors yield,
They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear, While moons and stars their courses run, Inwreathes the circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,
To sultry August spreads its charm,
Lights pale October on his way,
And twines December's arm.

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest 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.

SCENE AFTER A SUMMER SHOWER.

ANDREWS NORTON.

The rain is o'er. How dense and bright
Yon pearly clouds reposing lie!
Cloud above cloud, a glorious sight,
Contrasting with the dark blue sky!

In grateful silence, earth receives
The general blessing: fresh and fair,
Each flower expands its little leaves,
As glad the common joy to share.

The softened sunbeams pour around
A fairy light, uncertain, pale;

The wind flows cool; the scented ground
Is breathing odors on the gale.

The sun breaks forth: from off the scene
Its floating veil of mist is flung;

And all the wilderness of green

With trembling drops of light is hung.

THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET.

JOHN KEATS.

The poetry of earth is never dead;

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead
That is the grasshopper's, --he takes the lead

In summer luxury, he has never done
With his delights; for, when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never,

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the hearth there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems, to one in drowsiness half lost,

The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

LAY OF THE IMPRISONED HUNTSMAN.

WALTER SCOTT.

My hawk is tired of perch and hood,
My idle greyhound loathes his food,
My horse is weary of his stall,
And I am sick of captive thrall.
I wish I were, as I have been,
Hunting the hart in forest green,

With bended bow and bloodhound free,
For that's the life is meet for me.

I hate to learn the ebb of time,

From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime,
Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl,

Inch after inch, along the wall.
The lark was wont my matins ring,
The sable rook my vespers sing;
These towers, although a king's they be,
Have not a hall of joy for me.
No more at dawning morn I rise,
And sun myself in Ellen's eyes,
Drive the fleet deer the forest through,
And homeward wend with evening dew;
A blithesome welcome blithely meet,
And lay my trophies at her feet,
While fled the eve on wing of glee,-
That life is lost to love and me!

THE BISON TRACK.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

Strike the tent! the sun has risen; not a vapor streaks the dawn,

And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and

wan:

Prime afresh the trusty rifle,-sharpen well the hunting

spear

For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I hear!

Fiercely stamp the tethered horses, as they snuff the morning's fire;

Their impatient heads are tossing, and they neigh with keen desire.

Strike the tent! the saddles wait us,-let the bridle-reins be slack,

For the prairie's distant thunder has betrayed the bison's track.

See a dusky line approaches: hark, the onward surging

roar,

Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of

shore !

Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost of the van,

And their stubborn horns are clashing through the crowded caravau.

Now the storm is down upon us: let the maddened horses go!

We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred leagues it blow!

Though the cloudy manes should thicken, and the red eyes angry glare

Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and rushing air!

Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless

race,

And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the desert space;

Yet the rein may not be tightened, nor the rider's eye look back

Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the maddened bison's track!

Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase is close and warm

For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the storm:

Swiftly hurl the whizzing lasso,-swing your rifles as we

run;

See! the dust is red behind him,-shout my comrades, he is won!

Look not on him as he staggers,-'tis the last shot he will need!

More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the mad stampede,

Ere we stem the brinded breakers, while the wolves, a hungry pack,

Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody Bison Track!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

LORD BYRON.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold, And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever were still!

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