O winds of eve that somewhere rove Owen Meredith. THE GREENWOOD. 'Tis merry in greenwood,-thus runs the old lay,- Invites to forest bower: Then rears the ash his airy crest, Then shines the birch in silver vest, And the beech in glistening leaves is drest, Though a thousand branches join their screen, With brighter tints the flower : Dull is the heart that loves not then The deep recess of the wild-wood glen, Less merry, perchance, is the fading leaf Silent is then the forest bound, Save the redbreast's note, and the rustling sound Of frost-nipt leaves that are dropping round, Or the deep-mouth'd cry of the distant hound Yet then, too, I love the forest wide, And gild its many-colour'd side; Like an early widow's veil, Where wimpling tissue from the gaze Sir Walter Scott. S TO AUTUMN. EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; run; To bend with apples the moss'd 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, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; John Keats. |