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LONDON:
HENRY J. DRANE & CO.
Paternoster Row
E.C.
New York: E.P. Dutton&
Co.
I.
What
dreams the flower cups enfold
Within
their fragrant leaves,
Of
meadow-ways grown fair with spring,
Soft
mists that April weaves;
And
cottage gardens where the scent
Of
flowers is with the wood-smoke blent.
The
ceaseless ripple of the brook,
Babbling
against the broken arch,
The
little firwood's tasselled spires,
The
cloud of verdure on the larch;
The
gold-green glimmer of the woods,
Where
tender twilight always broods.
C.
Brooke.
II.
There is dew for the flow'ret,
And honey for the bee,
And bowers for the wild bird,
And love for you and me.
There are tears for the many,
And pleasures for the few,
But let the world pass on, dear,
There's love for me and you.
Hood.
III.
THE ROSE IN OCTOBER.
O late and sweet, too sweet, too late!
What nightingale will
sing to thee?
The empty nest, the
shivering tree,
The dead leaves by the garden gate,
And cawing crows for thee will wait,
O
sweet and late!
Where wert thou when the soft June
nights
Were faint with perfume,
glad with song?
Where wert thou when the
days were long
And steeped in Summer's young delights?
What hopest thou now but checks and
slights,
Brief days, lone nights?
Stay, there's a gleam of Winter wheat
Far on the hill; down in
the woods
A very heaven of
stillness broods;
And through the mellow sun's worn heat,
Lo! tender pulses round thee beat,
O
late and sweet!
IV.
There's beauty all around our paths, if but our
watchful eyes
Can trace it midst familiar things and through
their lowly guise;
We may find it when a hedgerow showers its
blossoms o'er our way,
Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last
red light of
day.
F. Hemans.
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V.
ALF covered with last year's
leaves,
She peeped from her russet bed;
The great bare branches of the trees
Were tossed and swayed
overhead;
The hedge looked barren and prickly,
Without the sign of a leaf;
Over the flower there bowed a
heart
Grown cold with the snows of grief.
The violet's fragile petals
Enfolded a heart of gold,
And a deeper wealth of perfume,
Than the tiny cup could hold;
So the great wind roaring above
Sent a tiny zephyr down,
To drift aside the sheltering bloom,
And bereave her of her crown.
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It stole the familiar scent,
To give to the
burdened heart
With only a cold north wind
In
the world to take its part;
The flower died in the bleak March
air,
And the heart went on its way;
The
violet's life was blooming there,
And melting the
snows
away.
Caris Brooke.
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Yet nature holds a gracious hand,
Her
ancient ways pursuing;
And spreads the charms we loved of
old,
To aid the heart's renewing.
Here her long crests of fringèd crag
Allure the skyward swallows;
Here the still dove's low love-note
floats
Above her leafy hollows. |
Here its calm
strength her hillside rears,
From heaving slopes of clover;
Here still the
pewit pipes and flits
Within his furzy cover.
Here hums the
wild-bee in the thyme,
Here glows the royal heather;
And youth comes
back upon the breeze,
And youth's unclouded weather.
F.T. Palgrave.
VII.
AN APPEAL.
Dear,
do not die!
Of
cypresses and grassy graves sing I--
I hang
with wreaths of song death's grief-grown cross,
And
weep, to music, for Life's infinite loss,
And
make the sweetest verse of bitterest woe,
--I
know the way because I love you so;
But I
have written griefs that I have known
In
other's heart's blood, never in my own.
If
you died what more could be sung or said?
I could
not sing of Death if you were dead.
Dear, do not love!
Do not
love me, keep still aloof, above!
While
you and Love in far-off glory stand
Clear
sounds the voice, and harp responds to hand.
But if
you loved me--if you came quite near
And set
Love 'mid life's common things and dear--
Mute
would the voice be, Love would be too fair
To
waste upon the wide world's empty air,
And,
songless, I should droop and vainly pine--
I could
not sing of Love if you were mine!
E. Nesbit.
VIII.
I know the way she went
Home with her maiden
posy,
For her feet have
touch'd
the meadows
And left
the daisies
rosy.
Tennyson.
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IX.
golden radiance shines,
And day
declines;
Red in the dying sun,
Day's course is run;
And weary
labourers have home-
ward
gone,
Their day's work done.
The cornfield now is still,
To-morrow will
Bring back the men who reap:
But now asleep
The woods and
fields and
meadows seem
to lie--
Restful as
I.
E. Nesbit.
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X.
As a twig trembles which a bird
Lights on to sing,
then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;
I only know she came and went. |
As clasps
some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome's measureless content,
So my soul
held that moment's heaven;--
I
only know she came and went.
As at one
bound, our swift Spring heaps
The orchard full of bloom and scent,
So clove her
May my wintry sleeps;--
I
only know she came and went.
An angel
stood and met my gaze
Through the low doorway of my tent;
The tent is
struck, the vision stays;--
I
only know she came and went.
Oh, when the room grows
slowly
dim,
And life's last oil is
nearly spent,
One gush of light
these
eyes will brim,
Only to think she came
and
went.
J.R. Lowell.
XI.
EVENING SONG.
Waking, I dream of thy life that shall be
Never by sorrow made weary;
Earth shall be soft with love for thee,
Down-lined the nest of my dearie.
Millions of flowers to gladden thy way,
Springing from seeds that my heart sets to-day.
Sleep, darling baby, baby!
Sleeping, dream thou of the Spirit of Spring--
Of sweets and of scents she is
bringing;
Just for the flowers' sake thrushes will sing,
Flowers blow for love of the singing.
In the world's harmony take thou thy part,
So shall the springtide bloom in thy heart!
Sleep, darling baby, baby!
E. Nesbit.
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 XII.
ow comes the first chill whisper of the
end |
While yet the woods are
green and skies are
blue;
While under loads of corn great
waggons bend,
And sunshine makes
us glad the whole day through.
The trees are full of leaf and of
delight,
Yet through them
sighs the forecast of the time
When the lean branches shall be
wondrous, white
With winter's
lovely radiant frost and rime.
The fallen leaves as yet are hardly
missed,
The rest will
fade--until the woods are bare,
And the dim glades where summer
lovers kissed,
Forget how leafy
and divine they were.
And in our souls come whispers of
despair,
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"Failure
again--failure for evermore!
Leaves only for one summer's space
are fair,
No flower can live
to see the fruit it bore."
Yet every spring millions of flowers
have birth,
And every autumn
brings its fruits and sheaves;
But when the fruit and grain make
glad the earth,
Dead are the
flowers, and falling are the leaves.
Though all our lives we see our dear
dreams die,--
Each noble dream
brings fruit. It may not be
The fruit we hoped it would be
followed by,
But the fruit lasts
to all eternity. |
No seed is lost--in earth's brown bosom cast;
No deed is lost--of all the deeds we
do;
Each grows to fruit--is harvested at last,
Haply in shape undreamed of, fair, and
new.
And, though we die before the end be won, |
Our deeds live on;
and other men
will cry,
Seeing the end of what |
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 we have begun,
"Still lives the fruit
for which the
flowers
had to die!"
E. Nesbit.
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XIII.
Birds, joyous birds, of the wander-
ing wing!
Whence is it ye come with the
flowers of Spring?
"We come from the shores of the
green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of
Sharon smile,
And each worn wing hath regained
its home
Under
peasants' roof-trees or
monarch's dome." |
And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea's foam?
"We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o'ershadowing the banquet's hall,
And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt,--
Naught looks the same, save the nest we built."
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O joyous birds! it hath still
been so;
Through the halls of kings
doth the tempest
go!
But the huts of the hamlet
lie still and
deep,
And the hills o'er their
quiet a vigil
keep:
Say, what have ye found in
the peasant's
cot,
Since last ye parted from
that sweet
spot?-- |
"A change we have found there--and many a change!
Faces and
footsteps, and all things strange!
Gone are the heads of the silvery
hair,
And the young that were, have a brow of care.
And the place
is hushed where the children played--
Naught looks the same, save the
nest we
made."
F.
Hemans.
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