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.

883

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,

Such, such were the joys,
When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth-time were scen
On the echoing green.

Till the little ones, weary,
No more can be merry,

The sun does descend,

And our sports have an end.

Round the laps of their mothers,

Many sisters and brothers,

Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest,

And sport no more seen,

On the darkening green.

William Blake.

ODE TO EVENING.

Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own brawling springs,

Thy springs and dying gales

O Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired Sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed.

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

ODE TO EVENING.

As oft he rises midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum;
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial, loved return!

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,

85

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew; and, lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport

Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And love thy favorite name!

William Collins.

DESCRIPTION OF A SUMMER'S EVE.

Down the sultry arc of day

The burning wheels have urged their way;
And Eve along the western skies
Sheds her intermingling dyes.
Down the deep, the miry lane,
Creaking comes the empty wain,
And driver on the shaft-horse sits,
Whistling now and then by fits;
And oft, with his accustom'd call,
Urging on the sluggish Ball.

The barn is still, the master's gone,
And thresher puts his jacket on,
While Dick, upon the ladder tall,
Nails the dead kite to the wall.