Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie, In all the world of busy life around No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky No drop, for them, of kindly influence found. Soon o'er their heads blithe1 April airs shall sing, A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold, The green buds glisten in the dews of Spring, And all be vernal rapture as of old. John Keble: 1792-1866. (See page 34.) A TRANQUIL DAY IN AUTUMN. The fading chaplet of the year? Yet wears the pure aërial sky Her summer veil, half drawn on high, Like weary men when age is won, John Keble: 1792-1866. THE MATRON YEAR. THE leaves that made our forest pathways shady The year is fading, like a stately lady 1 blithe—joyous. Yet, while the memory of her beauty lingers, Yet sometimes, too, when sunlight gilds the morning, With odorous May-buds, sweet as youthful pleasures, 2 Gold, purple, green, inwrought with every splendour, Piled high with sheaves of golden-bearded grain. 4 AUTUMN. THE Autumn is old, The sere leaves are flying ;- The vintage is ripe, The year's in the wane, And the day has no morning ; Cold winter gives warning. The rivers run chill, The red sun is sinking, And I am grown old, And life is fast shrinking Here's enow for sad thinking! Thomas Hood: 1798-1845. The life of Thomas Hood was a continuous conflict with adverse circumstances and ill-health. Yet he is most widely known as a humorous writer. But his serious work shows him to have been a true poet. His best verses are marked by intense pathos,-by pure and exquisite sentiment, and by fertile imagination. His diction is always in harmony with the nature of his theme. AUTUM N. (From an Ode.) WHERE is the pride of Summer, the green prime,— Where is the Dryad's1 immortality?— Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through In the smooth holly's green eternity. The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard, The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain, And honey bees have stored The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells; And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. Upon a mossy stone, She sits and reckons up the dead and gone With the last leaves for a love-rosary, While all the wither'd world looks drearily, Like a dim picture of the drowned past In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away, Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last Into that distance, grey upon the grey. Thomas Hood: 1798-1845. TO AUTUMN. (See page 70.) SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel-shells For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. 1 Dryades-deities who presided over woods: wood-nymphs. 2 rosary-a string of beads for counting prayers. Hence a love-rosary would be for remembrance of all the beloved. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath1 and all its twinèd flowers; And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; John Keats: 1795-1821. (See page 47.) CHRISTMAS-TIME. HEAP on more wood!-the wind is chill; We'll keep our Christmas merry still. And well our Christian sires of old Loved when the year its course had rolled, 1 swath-line of grass or corn in harvesting. 2 barred clouds-long streaks of cloud that hold the evening sunshine. 3 sallows-river-side shrubs of the willow kind, 4 bourn-boundary, a sheep-fold, |