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THE HAMLET.

'Tis thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain turf I lie;
While the wanton Zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,

Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Search for Peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor.

In vain you search; she is not here!
In vain you search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with Pleasure-close allied,
Ever by each other's side;
And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

79

John Dyder.

THE HAMLET.

THE hinds how blest, who, ne'er beguiled
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild,
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main,
For splendid care, and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight-cinctured beam
Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam,
They rove abroad in ether blue,

To dip the scythe in fragrant dew;
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding shades a craggy dell.

Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear;
On green, untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue:

In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds;
And startle from her ashen spray
Across the glen the screaming jay;
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequestered shore.

For them the moon with cloudless ray
Mounts to illume their homeward way:
Their weary spirits to relieve,

The meadows incense breathe at eve.

No riot mars the simple fare,

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share:

But when the curfew's measured roar

Duly, the darkening valleys o'er,
Has echoed from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,

81

THE EVENING WIND.

Or through the primrosed coppice stray,
Or gambol on the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;

Or hasten from the sultry hill,
To loiter at the shady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honeyed flowers
The curling woodbine's shade embowers:
From the small garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound:
Nor fell disease before his time

Hastes to consume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of tresses hoar,
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flowery turf they sleep.

Joseph Warton.

1

THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice! thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day!
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

6

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And languishing to hear thy welcome sound
Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth—
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest;

Curl the still waters, bright with stars; and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast. Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone; That they who near the churchyard willows stray, And listen in the deepening gloom, alone, May think of gentle souls that passed away,

Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown, Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men, And gone into the boundless heaven again.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed

Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

THE ECHOING GREEN.

And softly part his curtains to allow

Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go-but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of Nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, Thee to thy birth-place of the deep once more. Sweet odors in the sea air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

83

William Cullen Bryant.

THE ECHOING GREEN.

THE sun does arise,

And make happy the skies:

The merry bells ring

To make happy the spring:
The skylark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,

Sing louder around

To the bell's cheerful sound,

While our sports shall be seen

On the echoing green.

Old John, with white hair,

Does laugh away care,

Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk;
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say,

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