And smile at thee! but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey!

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

We know when moons shall wane,

When summer-birds from far shall cross the sea,
When Autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain;
But who shall teach us when to look for thee?

Is it when spring's first gale

Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie?
Is it when roses in our paths grow pale?
They have one season-all are ours to die!

Thou art where billows foam,

Thou art where music melts upon the air;
Thou art around us in our peaceful home,
And the world calls us forth-and thou art there;

Thou art where friend meets friend,

Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest;

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath,

And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

HEMANS.

LOVED ONES.

For the most loved are they

Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice
In regal halls!-the shades o'erhang their way,
The vale, with its deep fountain, is their choice:
And gentle hearts rejoice

Around their steps!-till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer's burning eye;
And the world knows not then,

Not then, nor ever, what pure thoughts are fled!
Yet these are they that on the souls of men

Come back, when night her folding veil hath spread,
The long remembered dead!

HEMANS.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thy happiness,—
That thou, light winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cooled a long age in the deep delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm south,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth,

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim :

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs; Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the queen-moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown, Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

K

But, in embalmëd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild :
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that ofttimes hath

Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.

Forlorn the very sound is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep!

KEATS.

AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or in a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: