How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
And his own steps—and over wide dominions

Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,
More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks below,
When winter and despondency are past.

IT was the azure time of June,

When the skies are deep in the stainless noon,
And the warm and fitful breezes shake
The fresh green leaves of the hedgerow briar,
And there were odours then to make

The very breath we did respire

A liquid element, whereon

Our spirits, like delighted things
That walk the air on subtle wings,
Floated and mingled far away,

Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.
And when the evening star came forth

Above the curve of the new-bent moon,
And light and sound ebbed from the earth,
Like the tide of the full and weary sea
To the depths of its own tranquillity,
Our natures to its own repose

Did the Earth's breathless sleep attune.
Rosalind and Helen.

SUMMER AND WINTER.

IT was a bright and cheerful afternoon,
Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
When the north wind congregates in crowds
The floating mountains of the silver clouds
From the horizon-and the stainless sky
Opens beyond them like eternity.

All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,
The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees.

It was a winter such as when birds die

In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when,
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:
Alas then for the homeless beggar old!

AUTUMN.

A DIRGE.

THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,

And the year

On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come, months, come away,
From November to May,

In your saddest array ;
Follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the year:

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each

gone

To his dwelling;

Come, months, come away;
Put on white, black, and grey;
Let your light sisters play—
Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

p!.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,

So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year :-be calm and mild, Trembling hours, she will arise

With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O, ye hours, Follow with May's fairest flowers.

MUTABILITY.

THE flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all

Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day;

Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep

Then wake to weep.