Through the grey, no cloud to mar,
Brightly shines the evening star :
Pensive thoughts unbidden start,
And tender yearnings fill my heart.
I STAND and call
From the elm-tree tall,
Shine or shadow, I care not at all,
When March is merry with winds, and when
The woods are yellow and brown again.
I call the Sun,
Ere the day's begun,
When out in the twilight grey and dun
The trees like witches fling on high
Their black lean arms against the sky.
And the Sun awakes,
And a proud glance takes
At his glad fair face in the shining lakes:
And vane, and gable, and red roof-tiles,
Barn, and steeple, and thatch, and byre
Rise from the white mists out of the shire,
Touched with splendour and topt with fire;
And everything anear, afar,
From the spray that leaps on the shingle-bar, To the limestone crag on the top of the scar, Is bright with his beauty for miles and miles.
And I call the Flowers,
The sweet young Flowers,
In their mossy cradles and faery bowers; For I know their haunts, and I peer and peep By coppice and brook where they love to sleep.
And the Flowers arise
With a shy surprise,
And look at each other, and then at the skies.
And the primrose pouts as the blackthorn drips
A round rude drop on her maiden lips.
And the celandines burn, like a sunny gleam
Spilt through the oak-boughs on to the grass;
And the daffodil stands, as a country lass
Stands when her sweetheart is going to pass,
And the violet watches with thoughtful eye
The waters below her, and marvels why
She cannot follow them hurrying by,
And wonders if everything is not a dream.
And my song I pour
To Man, before
Lordly portal and palace-door,
When the morning breaks, and the shadows flee,
And light comes laughing o'er wold and lea.
But man is asleep,
And slumbers deep
His senses clog and his eyelids steep : And he cannot know, for he does not see, How very near to this earth of ours
Draws heaven itself in the twilight hours,
In the morning clouds and the opening flowers;
When the last stars faintly are fading away,
When the rabbits are out in the bracken at play,
When the rookery caws as the beech-boughs sway,
And I stand and call from the tall elm-tree.
EDMUND WHYTEHEAD HOWSON.
Ir dressed itself in green leaves all the summer long,
Was full of chattering starlings, loud with throstles' song:
Children played beneath it, lovers sat and talked,
Solitary strollers looked up often as they walked.
Oh, so fresh its branches! and its old trunk grey
Was so stately rooted, who forbore decay?
Even when winds had blown it yellow and almost bare,
Softly dropped its chestnuts through the misty air;
Still its few leaves rustled with a faint delight,
And their tender colours charmed the sense of sight,
Filled the soul with beauty, and the heart with peace,
Like sweet sounds departing-sweetest when they cease.
Pelting, undermining, loosening came the rain;
Through its topmost branches roared the hurricane ;
Oft it strained and shivered till the night wore past;
But in dusky daylight there the tree stood fast,
Though its birds had left it, and its leaves were dead,
And its blossoms faded, and its fruits all shed--
Aye, and when last sunset came a wanderer by
Watched it as aforetime with a musing eye,
Still it wore its scant robes so pathetic gay
Caught the sun's last glimmer, the new-moon's first ray
And majestic, patient, stood amidst its peers,
Waiting for the spring-time of uncounted years.
But the worm was busy, and the days were run;
Of its hundred sunsets this was the last one:
So in quiet midnight, with no eye to see,
None to smite in falling, fell the noble tree!
Says the early labourer, starting at the sight
With a sleepy wonder, "Fallen in the night!"
Says the schoolboy, leaping in a wild delight
Over trunk and branches, "Fallen in the night!"
THE AUTHOR OF 66 John Halifax, Gentleman."
WHEN the storm-cock blows his whistle,
And the tomtit files his saw,
And the robin pipes his treble
And the rook flies with the daw;
And the cricket tunes his fiddle
To the kettle's merry song,
And the sleety blast is driving
The poor beggar-boy along;
When the sea-coal fire burns brightest
And the kitten's loudest purr,
And no music to the sportsman
Beats the pheasant's sudden whirr;
When the cowherd sets his springles
By the runnel and the mere,
And the starlings seek the plashets
At the belling of the deer ;
When the colly in the coppice
Cracks his snails upon the stone,
And the carrion-crow sits telling
All his doleful tale alone;
While the young thrush in the thicket
Tries his notes o'er for the Spring,
And the wild geese, flying V-like,
Speed more swiftly on the wing;
When the flails make merry music
To the urchins out of school,
And the old men seek the settle
While the maidens card the wool;
When fair Nelly from the forest
Calls the acorn-hunting swine,
With her cheery "Chuggy, chuggy,"
In the glow of even-chime,
And old gossips croon their stories
As they squat around the fires,
And wee Jenny-Wrens a-peeping
See the poachers set their wires;
When young Hodge, the weary plough-boy,
Snores with heavy head awry,
As sly Roger plays the sweetheart
To prim Polly, rushing by,
While old pedlar Joe laughs loudly,
Spilling cider in his mirth,
Over Skip, the farm-dog, dozing,
Dreaming on the cosy hearth,
And the goodwife rocks the cradle
Till the master's voice is heard-
"To bed, boys," as "Tuwhit, tuwhoo,"
Hoots the sage Minerva's bird :*
* The owl, which was fabled to attend Minerva, the goddess of wisdom
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