LITTLE HILL-FOLK.

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T1

LITTLE HILL-FOLK.

I.

HE poetry of earth is never dead :

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead : That is the grasshopper's. He takes the lead

In summer luxury he has never done

:

With his delights; for, when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never :

On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems, to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

John Keats.

G

II.

REEN little vaulter in the sunny grass,

Catching your heart up at the feel of June, Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, When even the bees lag at the summoning brass ; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class

With those who think the candles come too soon, Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass; O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

One to the fields, the other to the hearth!

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are

strong

At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song,

In doors and out, summer and winter,—Mirth.

FABLE.

Leigh Hunt.

HE mountain and the squirrel

ΤΗ

Had a quarrel ;

And the former called the latter “Little Prig.”
Bun replied,

"You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together,

To make up a year and a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,

You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.

I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel-track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put ;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut."

R. W. Emerson.

W

THE MICROCOSM

THE MICROCOSM.

HAT forests tall of tiniest moss
Clothe every little stone!

What pigmy oaks their foliage toss

O'er pigmy valleys lone!

With shade o'er shade, from ledge to ledge,
Ambitious of the sky,

They feather o'er the steepest edge

Of mountains mushroom high.

O God of marvels! who can tell
What myriad living things

On these gray stones unseen may dwell;
What nations, with their kings!

I feel no shock, I hear no groan,
While fate perchance o'erwhelms
Empires on this subverted stone—
A hundred ruin'd realms!

Lo! in that dot, some mite, like me,
Impell'd by woe or whim,

May crawl some atom-cliffs to see-
A tiny world to him!

Lo! while he pauses and admires
The works of nature's might,
Spurn'd by my foot, his world expires,
And all to him is night!

O God of terrors! what are we ?—

Poor insects, spark'd with thought! Thy whisper, Lord, a word from thee Could smite us into nought!

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But shouldst thou wreck our father-land,

And mix it with the deep,

Safe in the hollow of thine hand

Thy little ones would sleep.

Ebenezer Elliot.

Green leaves a-floating,

Castles of the foam,

Boats of mine a-boating

Where will all come home?

On goes the river

And out past the mill,

Away down the valley,

Away down the hill.

Away down the river,

A hundred miles or more,

Other little children

Shall bring my boats ashore.

R. L. Stevenson.

COME DOWN, O MAID.

OME down, O maid, from yonder mountain

COME

height;

What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),

In height and cold, the splendor of the hills?

COME DOWN, O MAID.

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But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine: nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air;

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I

Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Tennyson.