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"And see where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and the eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets, and shed their dews ;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!
"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See Love is brooding, and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
And rejoice, like us, in motion and light."

Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
And weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on in your glory and gladness, sent
To the furthest wall of the firmament,

The boundless visible smile of HIM,

To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim.

MARY HOWITT.

CORN-FIELDS.

In the young merry time of spring,
When clover 'gins to burst ;
When blue-bells nod within the wood,
And sweet may whitens first;
When merle and mavis sing their fill,

Green is the young corn on the hill.

But when the merry spring is past,
And summer groweth bold,
And in the garden and the field

A thousand flowers unfold;
Before a green leaf yet is sere,
The young corn shoots into the ear.

But then as day and night succeed,
And summer weareth on,
And in the flowery garden-beds
The red rose groweth wan,

And hollyhock and sunflowers tall
O'ertop the mossy garden-wall;

When on the breath of autumn breeze,
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating, like an idle thought,
The fair, white thistle-down;
O, then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest-hill!

What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new-shorn,
And see all round on sun-lit slopes
The piled up shocks of corn,
And send the Fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore!

I feel the day; I see the field;
The quivering of the leaves;
And good old Jacob and his house

Binding the yellow sheaves;
And at this very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.

I see the fields of Bethlehem,

And reapers many a one,
Bending unto their sickles' stroke,
And Boaz looking on ;
And Ruth, the Moabitess fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.

Again, I see a little child,

His mother's sole delight; God's living gift of love unto

The kind, good Shunammite; To mortal pangs I see him yield, And the lad bear him from the field.

The sun-bathed quiet of the hills;
The fields of Galilee,

That eighteen hundred years agone
Were full of corn, I see;

And the dear Saviour take His way 'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath-day.

O golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem !—
The reaper-folk, the piled up sheaves,
To me are like a dream;

The sunshine and the very air

Seem of old time, and take me there!

WILLIAM HOWITT.

THE MISSIONARY.

My heart goes with thee, dauntless man,
Freely as thou dost hie

To sojourn with some barbarous clan,
For them to toil and die.
Fondly our spirits to our own

Cling, nor to part allow;

Thine to some land forlorn hath flown ;
We turn, and where art thou?

Thou climb'st the vessel's lofty side,-
Numbers are gathering there;
The youthful warrior in his pride,
The merchant in his care;

Hearts which for knowledge track the seas,

Spirits which lightly rove,

Glad as the billows and the breeze,―

And thou, the child of love.

A savage shore receives thy tread ;
Companion thou hast none;

The wild boughs wave above thy head,
Yet still thou journeyest on;
Threading the tangled wild wood drear,

Piercing the mountain-glen,

Till wearily thou drawest near

The haunts of lonely men.

R

Strange is thine aspect to their eyes;
Strange is thy foreign speech;
And wild and strong is their surprise
At marvels thou dost teach.

Thy strength alone is in thy words;
Yet armies could not bow

The spirit of those barbarous hordes
So readily as thou.

But O! thy heart, thou home-sick man,
With saddest thoughts runs o'er,
Sitting, as fades the evening wan,

Silently at thy door.

Yet, that poor hut upon the wild,

A stone beneath the tree,

And souls to Heaven's love reconciled,--
These are enough for thee.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

RIVERS.

CLEAR and cool, clear and cool,

By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool ;
Cool and clear, cool and clear,

By shining shingle, and foaming weir;

Under the crag where the ousel sings,

And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings.

Undefiled for the undefiled;

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.

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