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 That I should ape the ways of pride. And when again the genial hour THE DAISY. JAMES MONTGOMERY. There is a flower, a little flower, The prouder beauties of the field 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, 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 In grateful silence, earth receives The softened sunbeams pour around The wind flows cool; the scented ground The sun breaks forth: from off the scene 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 From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead In summer luxury, he has never done 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, With bended bow and bloodhound free, I hate to learn the ebb of time, From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime, Inch after inch, along the wall. 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, For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, |