The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest

Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,

Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill

On the top of the bare hill;

The plough-boy is whooping

anon

There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing;
Blue sky prevailing ;

The rain is over and gone!

- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

II.

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

UNDER the greenwood tree

Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun

And loves to live i' the sun,

Seeking the food he eats.

And pleased with what he gets,

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

12.

EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O Nymph reserved,—while now the bright-hair'd sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed,

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,

Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,—
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some soften'd strain

Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As musing slow I hail

Thy genial love return.

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge

And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still

The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;

Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds or driving rain.
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport

Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,

Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy favorite name!

-WILLIAM COLLINS.

13.

EVENING SONG.

SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is,
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of crystal beads:
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead Night from under ground;
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapors fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face

Of these pastures, where they come,
Striking dead both bud and bloom:
Therefore, from such danger lock
Every one his loved flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid

away;

Or the crafty thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourselves from these,
Be not too secure in ease;
Let one eye his watches keep,
Whilst the other eye doth sleep;
So you shall good shepherds prove,
And for ever hold the love

Of our great god. Sweetest slumbers,
And soft silence, fall in numbers
On your eyelids! So, farewell!

Thus I end my evening's knell.

-JOHN FLETCHER.

14.

TO DIANA.

HAIL, beauteous Dian, queen of shades, That dwell'st beneath these shadowy glades, Mistress of all those beauteous maids

That are by her allowed.

Virginity we all profess,

Abjure the worldly vain excess,

And will to Dian yield no less

Than we to her have vowed.

The shepherds, satyrs, nymphs, and fawns,
For thee will trip it o'er the lawns.