Home friends and far-off hospitalities, And filled with gracious and memorial fame And alien lips and native with their own. But when white age and venerable death Mow down the strength and life within their limbs, And such as loved their land and all things good Free lives and lips, free hands of men free-born, Human SAMUEL WADDINGTON ACROSS the trackless skies thou may'st not wander; Thou may'st not tread the infinite beyond; To One in Town COME back, come back, 'tis Nature bids you come ! Come back once more to tarn and tangled wood,— Come back to glen, and stream, and torrent flood, Come back, and 'mid the woodlands make your home : Too long you quit the birds, the flowers, the dome Of forest-boughs, the dell, where once you stood Life-thrilled, and living knew that life was good ; Too long you miss the bees, the busy hum Of painted bodies, and the ceaseless stir Of wings, the sounds, the joy, the passing whirr Of drone, or dragon-fly,—these, these are thine, And yet you have them not,-what have you then? The dusky shapes, and care-worn ways of men : Come back, come back, to Nature and her shrine ! Nature's Voices THE HE bee goes humming 'mid the honeyed bells; High at the gate of Paradise outpours His matin melody; the breezy dells Are carol-haunted; hark, the cuckoo tells Of faery worlds unseen; past cottage doors The rill runs whispering, while full loudly roars The thundering torrent down the echoing fells. And these are Nature's voices, these the choir Should mar the rapture that your voices bring: Sing on, O sing, and let our sole desire Be, at your feet, to still lie listening. Nature THIS 'HIS mount shall be our fane, a holy place! No acolyte shall swing the thurible, Nor whispering worshipper his rosary tell ; No priest shall here stand robed in lawn and lace; But the Eternal shall look down through space, And we will gaze and wonder :-it is well! Here where the heath-flower and the wild thyme dwell, How sweet is life, how fair, how full of grace ! In place of prayer we'll chant our joyous praise, Wood-Wanderings (Summer) T is the heat of summer, and I lie Couched, by the rillet's brink, on mosses green; So cool it is and quiet Time flits by On noiseless wing where hamadryads sigh,Where hyacinth and wind-flower bloom between The ancient boles of elms, and where unseen Trim fairies trip in moonlit revelry. Come ye, and gather roses, and be mine; On the Heights ERE where the heather blooms HE 'Neath the blue skies, Here let us rest awhile, What if time flies, Joy yet awaiteth us Ere the day dies. See how the pathway creeps Upward to glide : Here 'mid the heather long We will abide. Nature around us lies Placid and still,— Nature! thy children, we Wait on thy will; |