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LAMBS AT PLAY.

There panting stop: yet scarcely can refrain,
A bird, a leaf, will set them off again :
Or, if a gale with strength unusual blow,
Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow,

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Their little limbs increasing efforts try,
Like the torn flower, the fair assemblage fly.

Ah, fallen rose! sad emblem of their doom;
Frail as thyself, they perish while they bloom!

BLOOMFIELD.

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THE GREEN LINNET.

ENEATH these fruit-tree boughs, that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather;-

In this sequester'd nook, how sweet

To sit upon my orchard-seat,

And birds and flowers once more to greet,

My last year's friends together!

One have I mark'd, the happiest guest

In all this covert of the blest:

Hail to thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion;
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding spirit here to-day,

Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,

Make all one band of paramours,

Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,

Art sole in thy employment;

A life, a presence like the air,

Scattering thy gladness without care,

Too blest with any one to pair,

Thyself thy own enjoyment.

THE GREEN LINNET.

Upon yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perch'd in ecstacies,

Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My sight he dazzles, half deceives,
A bird so like the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mock'd and treated with disdain
The voiceless form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

WORDSWORTH.

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MILD-BREATHING Zephyr, father of the Spring,
Who in the verdant meads doth reign sole king;
Who, shelter'd here, shrunk from the wintry day,
And careless slept the stormy hours away,
Hath roused himself, and shook his feathers wet
With purple-swelling odours, and hath let

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