LOCH KATRINE.

To issue from the glen,

No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
Unless he climb with footing nice
A far projecting precipice.

The broom's tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid;
And thus an airy point he won,
Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnish'd sheet of living gold,
Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll'd;
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light;
And mountains, that like giants stand,

To sentinel enchanted land.

High on the south, huge Benvenue

Down on the lake in masses threw

Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd,

The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feather'd o'er
His ruin'd sides and summit hoar,

While on the north, through middle air,

Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

SCOTT.

THE FIRMAMENT.

THE spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim;

Th' unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth

Repeats the story of her birth

h;

Whilst all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What, though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine!

ADDISON.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs

the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves,-the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lonely beds, with the fair and good of

ours:

The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago, And the briar-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

185

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the

plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter

home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill ; The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance

late it bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood, and by the stream,

no more.

BRYANT.

THE MINSTREL'S HOPE.

"O YE wild groves, ob, where is now your bloom!"
(The muse interprets thus his tender thought)
Your flowers, your verdure, and your balmy gloom,
Of late so grateful in the hour of drought?

Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought
To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake?
Ah! why has fickle chance this ruin wrought?
For now the storm howls mournful through the brake,
And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake.

Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool?
And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty crown'd?
Ah! see, the unsightly slime and sluggish pool
Have all the solitary vale embrown'd;

Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound,
The raven croaks forlorn on naked spray :
And hark! the river, bursting every mound,
Down the vale thunders, and with wasteful sway,
Uproots the
grove, and rolls the shatter'd rocks away.

Yet such the destiny of all on earth:
So flourishes and fades majestic man.

Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth,
And fostering gales awhile the nursling fan.
Oh, smile, ye heavens, serene; ye mildews wan,