I watch the mowers as they go
Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.

With even stroke their scythes they swing, In tune their merry whetstones ring.

Behind, the nimble youngsters run, And toss the thick swaths in the sun.

The cattle graze; while warm and still Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,

And bright, where summer breezes break,
The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

The butterfly and humble-bee
Come to the pleasant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
The chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits.
And the woodpecker pecks and flits.
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,
The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats his throbbing drum,

The squirrel leaps among the boughs
And chatters in his leafy house.

The oriole flashes by; and, look! Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat, Two tiny feathers fall and float.

As silently, as tenderly,

The down of peace descends on me.

O, this is peace! I have no need Of friend to talk, of book to read;

A dear Companion here abides; Close to my thrilling heart He hides;

The holy silence is His voice: I lie and listen, and rejoice.

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

Song.

UNDER the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,

And tune his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see

No enemy

But Winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,

And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see

No enemy

But Winter and rough weather.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Come to these Scenes of Peace.

COME to these scenes of peace,
Where to rivers murmuring,
The sweet birds all the Summer sing,
Where cares, and toil, and sadness cease.
Stranger, does thy heart deplore
Friends whom thou wilt see no more?
Does thy wounded spirit prove
Pangs of hopeless, severed love?
Thee the stream that gushes clear,
Thee the birds that carol near,
Shall soothe, as silent thou dost lie
And dream of their wild lullaby;
Come to bless these scenes of peace,
Where cares, and toil, and sadness cease.
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

The Greenwood.

O! when 'tis summer weather,
And the yellow bee, with fairy sound,
The waters clear is humming round,
And the cuckoo sings unseen,
And the leaves are waving green-
O! then 'tis sweet,
In some retreat,

To hear the murmuring dove,

With those whom on earth alone we love,
And to wind through the greenwood together.

But when 'tis winter weather,

And crosses grieve,

And friends deceive,

And rain and sleet

The lattice beat,

O! then 'tis sweet

To sit and sing

Of the friends with whom, in the days of Spring,

We roamed through the greenwood together.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

The Garden.

How vainly men themselves amaze,
To win the palm, the oak, or bays:
And their incessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb, or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close,
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here, below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas! they know or heed,
How far these beauties her exceed!
Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat, Love hither makes his best retreat. The gods who mortal beauty chase, Still in a tree did end their race.

Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow:
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness.

The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was the happy garden state,

While man there walked without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises are in one,
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers, and herbs, this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers?

45

ANDREW MARVELL.

The Garden.

HAPPY art thou, whom God does bless,
With the full choice of thine own happiness;
And happier yet, because thou'rt blest
With prudence, how to choose the best:
In books and gardens thou hast placed aright
(Things, which thou well dost understand;
And both dost make with thy laborious hand)
Thy noble, innocent delight;

And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet

Both pleasures more refined and sweet;

The fairest garden in her looks,

And in her mind the wisest books.

O, who would change these soft, yet solid joys,
For empty shows and senseless noise;
And all which rank ambition breeds,

If any part of either we expect,

This may our judgment in the search direct;
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

O blessed shades! O gentle cool retreat
From all th' immoderate heat,

In which the frantic world does burn and sweat!
This does the Lion-star, ambition's rage;
This avarice, the Dog-star's thirst, assuage;
Everywhere else their fatal power we see;
They make and rule man's wretched destiny:
They neither set, nor disappear,

But tyrannize o'er all the year;

Whilst we ne'er feel their flame or influence here. The birds that dance from bough to bough,

And sing above in every tree,

Are not from fears and cares more free

Than we, who lie, or sit, or walk, below,
And should by right be singers too.

When God did man to his own likeness make,
As much as clay, though of the purest kind,
By the great potter's art refined,
Could the divine impression take,
He thought it fit to place him where
A kind of Heaven too did appear,

As far as Earth could such a likeness bear:
That man no happiness might want,
Which Earth to her first master could afford,
He did a garden for him plant

By the quick hand of his omnipotent word.
As the chief help and joy of human life,

He gave him the first gift; first, even before a wife.

For God, the universal architect,.

"T had been as easy to erect

A Louvre or Escurial, or a tower

That might with Heaven communication hold, As Babel vainly thought to do of old:

He wanted not the skill or power; In the world's fabric those were shown, And the materials were all his own. But well he knew what place would best agree With innocence and with felicity;

And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain; If any part of either yet remain,`

That, which within this shade does dwell?

To which we nothing pay or give;
They, like all other poets, live

Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains; 'Tis well if they become not prey.

The whistling winds add their less artful strains, And a grave bass the murmuring fountains play; Nature does all this harmony bestow,

But to our plants art's music too, The pipe, theorbo, and guitar, we owe; The lute itself, which once was green and mute, When Orpheus strook th' inspired lute, The trees danced round, and understood By sympathy the voice of wood.

These are the spells that to kind sleep invite,
And nothing does within resistance make,
Which yet we moderately take;

Who would not choose to be awake,

While he's encompast round with such delight,

To th' ear, the nose, the touch, the taste, and sight?

When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep

A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep,
The odorous herbs and flowers beneath him spread,
As the most soft and sweetest bed;

Not her own lap would more have charmed his head.