A Chanted Calendar

IRST came the primrose,
On the bank high,

Like a maiden looking forth
From the window of a tower
When the battle rolls below,

So looked she,

And saw the storms go by.

Then came the wind-flower
In the valley left behind,
As a wounded maiden pale
With purple streaks of woe,
When the battle has rolled by,
Wanders to and fro,
So tottered she,

Dishevelled in the wind.

Then came the daisies

On the first of May,

Like a bannered show's advance
While the crowd runs by the way,
With ten thousand flowers about them
They came trooping through the fields.
As a happy people come,

So came they.

As a happy people come

When the war has rolled away,

With dance and tabor, pipe and drum,

And all make holiday.

Then came the cowslip,

Like a dancer at the fair,

She spread her little mat of green,

And on it danced she.

With a fillet bound about her brow,
A fillet round her happy brow,

A golden fillet round her brow,
And rubies in her hair.

Sydney Dobell.

Seed Song

ITTLE brown brother, oh! little brown brother,
Are you awake in the dark?

Here we lie cosily, close to each other:
Hark to the song of the lark—

"Waken!" the lark says, "waken and dress

you;

Put on your green coats and gay,

Blue sky will shine on you, sunshine caress you—
Waken! 'tis morning-'t is May!"

Little brown brother, oh! little brown brother,
What kind of flower will you be?

I'll be a poppy—all white, like my mother;
Do be a poppy like me!

What! you're a sunflower? How I shall miss you
When you're grown golden and high!
But I shall send all the bees up to kiss you;

Little brown brother, good-bye.

E. Nesbit.

T

Spring

HE soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale;

The nightingale with feathers new she sings; The turtle to her mate hath told her tale. Summer is come, for every spray now springs, The hart hath hung his old head on the pale; The buck in brake his winter coat he flings; The fishes flete with new repaired scale; The adder all her slough away she slings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies small; The busy bee her honey now she mings; Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale. And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs. Earl of Surrey.

Blossom and Bird

Y soul is fevered with enchanted wine
Poured golden from the jewelled cup of
spring,

M

Here, where the hawthorn branches intertwine, And, canopied in bloom, the thrushes sing Concerted seconds to the nightingale

Who leads this chorus with more copious song
So sweet and strong

That, further down the vale,

I scarce can heed the cuckoo's muffled calling, Or note the plaintive wind's eternal wail

Over the hill-top, through the pine-wood falling.

A goddess lays her hand upon my heart,
Touches its drooping chords with unseen fingers,
Till air, sky, ground,

Give harmonies of sight, and scent, and sound, To soothe each aching nerve, to heal the smart Where the world's stroke still lingers.

My own loved land of blossom and of bird!
Once more I come for shelter to thy breast,

Sick of the streets where puny mortals herd

Through sunless days, whose night is robbed of rest,
Whose hope drags down, whose joys are all unblest.
Give me again the right to walk
Alone beneath a wind-swept sky

Through countless shades of green and tones of yellow,-
To watch the wheeling hawk

Before resentful swallows fly,

To hear the wood-dove calling to his fellow,
While sky-larks overhead are quivering

In rapturous madness as they sing,

And sound of lowing kine comes soft and mellow,
And all this wealth of beauty doth invite

To dream-born revelries of rich delight.

A. E. J. Legge.

N

May Morning

OW the bright morning star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap
throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that doth inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

Milton.

Ꮤ

Bird-Songs

HAT bird so sings, yet does so wail?
O! 'tis the ravished nightingale.
"Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu!" she cries,
And still her woes at midnight risc.

Brave prick-song! Who is 't now we hear?

None but the lark so shrill and clear;

Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings,

The morn not waking till she sings.

Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat
Poor robin redbreast tunes his note!
Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing,
"Cuckoo", to welcome in the spring!
"Cuckoo", to welcome in the spring!

John Lyly.