Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry ridge? And thou hast climb'd the hill, And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range; Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall, The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall— Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange. But what-I dream! Two hundred years are flown Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid— Matthew Arnold. A Dream DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, With moonlight beams of their own watery light; Methought that of these visionary flowers Shelley. B The thistledown: And the fairy-feathers Are tossed by the breeze Over the grasses, And the campions waver, Fills leagues with the fragrance Of sunsweet honey; Hither and thither then the wind takes them, Blows them, plays with them, Tosses them high through the gold of the sunshine, Wavers them upward, wavers them downward. Hither and thither among the white butterflies, Over and under the blue-moths and honey bees, Over the leagues of blossoming clover, Purple and white, the sweet-smelling clover, And grey hanging thistles, Hither and thither Are floating and sailing The joy o' the meadows, The thistledown. William Sharp. The Hill Pines HE hill pines were sighing, But deep in the glen's bosom A ribald cuckoo clamoured, Anon a sound appalling, And the shadowy pine-trees sighed. Robert Bridges. A Green and Silent Spot GREEN and silent spot, amid the hills, The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, All golden with the never-bloomless furze, Coleridge. A Grove KNOW a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, That should you close your eyes, you might almost |