LOCH KATRINE. To issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer's ken, The broom's tough roots his ladder made, To sentinel enchanted land. High on the south, huge Benvenue Down on the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd, The fragments of an earlier world; While on the north, through middle air, Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare. SCOTT. THE FIRMAMENT. THE spacious firmament on high, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Th' unwearied sun, from day to day, Soon as the evening shades prevail, Repeats the story of her birth h; Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. What, though in solemn silence all ADDISON. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves,-the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lonely beds, with the fair and good of ours: The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago, And the briar-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 185 But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill ; The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late it bore, And sighs to find them in the wood, and by the stream, no more. BRYANT. THE MINSTREL'S HOPE. "O YE wild groves, ob, where is now your bloom!" Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool? Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound, Yet such the destiny of all on earth: Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth, |