Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died-nor were those flowers more gay-
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came :
If nothing once, you nothing lose,

For when you die you are the same;
The space between is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.

Philip Freneau: 1752-1832.

An American poet and journalist. In the American War of Independence, Freneau was captured by the British (1780), and kept a prisoner till the war was over. For several years afterwards he was alternately a sea-captain and a newspaper editor. His numerous essays and political articles were powerfully written he was a true poet, and both Campbell and Scott are said to have borrowed from his works.

:

TO THE BRAMBLE FLOWER.

THY fruit full well the schoolboy knows,
Wild bramble of the brake !

So put thou forth thy small white rose;
I love it for his sake.

Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow
O'er all the fragrant bowers,

Thou need'st not be ashamed to show
Thy satin-threaded flowers;

For dull the eye, the heart is dull,

That cannot feel how fair,

Amid all beauty beautiful,
Thy tender blossoms are!

1 vestige-sign or trace.

How delicate thy gauzy frill !

How rich thy branchy stem!

How soft thy voice when woods are still
And thou sing'st hymns to them ;
While silent showers are falling slow,
And 'mid the general hush,

A sweet air lifts the little bough,

Lone whispering through the bush
The primrose to the grave is gone;
The hawthorn flower is dead;
The voilet by the mossed grey stone
Hath laid her weary head;

But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring,
In all their beauteous power,

The fresh green days of life's fair spring,
And boyhood's blossomy hour.

Scorned bramble of the brake! once more
Thou bidd'st me be a boy,

To gad1 with thee the woodlands o'er,
In freedom and in joy!

Ebenezer Elliott: 1781-1849.

Elliott was the son of an ironfounder at Masborough, Yorkshire, -and followed the same business himself for many years. He first attracted attention by his Corn-Law Rhymes; but he also wrote much good and true poetry, and was respected as a good and true man.

THE DAFFODILS.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud,
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside a lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

1 gad-ramble gaily.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund1 company.

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth: 1770-1850.

(See page 52.)

TO THE DANDELION.

DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,

First pledge2 of blithesome May,

Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers,3 o'erjoyed that they

An Eldorado in the grass have found,

5

Which not the rich earth's ample round

May match in wealth,—thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow1 Through the primeval 2 hush of Indian seas,

Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;

'Tis the spring's largess,3 which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,
Though most hearts never understand

To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,

His conquered Sybaris," than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,―
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,—
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind,-of waters blue
That from the distance sparkle through

Some woodland gap,-and of a sky above,
Where one light cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,

Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang cheerily all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,

1

2

prow the forepart or cut-water of a galley: also a kind of ship. primeval-original, first, or undisturbed. 3 largess-bounty. 4 cuirass-armour for breast and shoulders. 5 Sybaris-an ancient Italian city, once famous for its power and the luxurious life of its inhabitants. The aptness of the allusion lies in the fact that Sybaris was overcome by Crotona, a neighbouring city, whose inhabitants had learnt the bee-like virtues of sobriety, industry, and frugality from Pythagoras.

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show
Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.

James Russell Lowell: born, 1819.

(See page 22.)

THE HOLLY TREE.

OH, Reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly tree?

The eye that contemplates it well, perceives
Its glossy leaves

Order'd by an Intelligence so wise,

As might confound the atheist's sophistries.1
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;

And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree,

Can emblems see,

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

1 confound the atheist's sophistries-overthrow the false argu ments of the unbeliever in God.