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Springing in valleys green and low,
And on the mountains high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no man passes by?

Our outward life requires them not
Then wherefore had they birth?
To minister delight to man-
To beautify the earth;

To comfort man, to whisper hope,
Whene'er his faith is dim;
For whoso careth for the flowers,
Will much more care for him!

MARY HOWITT.

HOLY FLOWERS.

Woe's me-how knowledge makes forlorn!
The forest and the field are shorn

Of their old growth, the holy flowers;
Or if they spring, they are not ours.

Once musing in the woodland nook,
Each flower was as a written book,
Recalling, by memorial quaint,
The holy deed of martyred saint;
The patient faith, which, unsubdued,
Grew mightier through fire and blood.
One blossom, 'midst its leafy shade,
The virgin's purity portrayed;
And one, with cup all crimson dyed,
Spoke of a Saviour crucified :
And rich the store of holy thought
That little forest-flower brought.

Doctrine and miracle, whate'er

We draw from books was treasured there.

Faith, in the wild wood's tangled bound,

A blessed heritage had found!

And Charity and Hope were seen
In the lone isle and deep ravine.
Then, pilgrims in the forest brown,
Slow wandering on from town to town,
Halting 'mid mosses green and dank,
Breathed each a prayer before they drank
From waters by the pathway side.
Then, duly, morn and eventide,
Before those ancient crosses grey,

Now mouldering silently away,

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First, the lark, when she means to rejoice to cheer herself and those that hear her, she then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends higher into the air; and having ended her heavenly employment, grows then mute and sad to think she must descend to the dull earth, which she would not touch but for necessity.

How do the blackbird and throssel, with their melodious voice, bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed mouths warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to!

Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as, namely, the laverock, the tit-lark, the little linnet, and the honest robin, who loves mankind both alive and dead.

But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think

miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the clear air, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, "Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on earth!"

Thus speaks good, old Isaak Walton. Let us now hear Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose ode "To a Skylark" is worthy of the bird itself.

TO A SKYLARK.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still, and higher,

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning

Thou dost float and run,

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven

In the broad day-light;

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

SONGS OF SKYLARKS.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it needed not.

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

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Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard,

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal

Or triumphal chaunt,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt,—

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

P

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear, keen joyance,

Languor cannot be;
Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught:

Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures

Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then as I am listening now.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

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