So constant as my heart would be,
So fickle as it must,

"Twere well for others as for me
'Twere dry as summer dust.
Excitements come, and act and speech
Flow freely forth ;—but no,
Nor they, nor aught beside can reach
The buried world below.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

August Weather

EAD heat and windless air,

DEAD

And silence over all;

Never a leaf astir,

But the ripe apples fall; Plums are purple-red,

Pears amber and brown ; Thud! in the garden-bed Ripe apples fall down.

Air like a cider-press

With the bruised apples' scent;

Low whistles express

Some sleepy bird's content;

Still world and windless sky,

A mist of heat o'er all;
Peace like a lullaby,
And the ripe apples fall.

KATHARINE TYNAN.

NATURE

Autumn Song

O clouds are in the morning sky,
The vapours hug the stream,-

Who says that life and love can die

In all this northern gleam?

At every turn the maples burn,

The quail is whistling free,

The partridge whirs, and the frosted burs.
Are dropping for you and me.
Ho! billy bo! heigh O!
Hilly bo!

In the clear October morning.

Along our path the woods are bold,
And glow with ripe desire;
The yellow chestnut showers its gold,
The sumachs spread their fire;
The breezes feel as crisp as steel,

The buckwheat tops are red:
Then down the lane, love, scurry again,

And over the stubble tread!

Ho! hilly ho! heigh O !

Hilly bo!

In the clear October morning.

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

The Snow-Storm

ANNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

NATURE

Among the Rocks

OH, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,

This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth ;

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

If

Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you: Make the low nature better by your throes! Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

ROBERT BROWNING.

The Sea-Limits

CONSIDER the sea's listless chime:

Time's self it is, made audible—
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.
No quiet, which is death's,—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.

Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,
Listen alone among the woods;
Those voices of twin solitudes

Shall have one sound alike to thee:

Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again,—
Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips; they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

In cabin'd ships, at sea

N cabin'd ships, at sea,

The boundless blue on every side expanding,

With whistling winds and music of the waves,—the large

imperious waves.—In such,

Or some lone bark, buoy'd on the dense marine,
Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails,

She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,

By sailors young and old, haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,

In full rapport at last.