X.

Он, what a joy is in the vernal air!

For Nature now is like a budding girl,

Whose merry laugh displays, more white than pearl,
Teeth that make lovers old as me despair.

And yet, though Time has written on my hair
A notice from all amorous thoughts to part,
This day persuades long slumbering hopes to start,
Like cuckoo notes, from winter's drowsy lair.
Yet, my young love, I hope not for the thing
That is the prism of my soul. Oh, no!

I scorn the wish that to my love would bring
Laborious days, and poverty, and woe.

I only wish thou mayst beloved be

By a much better man, as I love thee.

XI.

AUTUMN FLOWERS.

THE flowers of Spring, they come in sweet succession,

Snowdrop and crocus, and mezereon, thick
Studded with blossom upon leafless stick,
And the young ivy, ceaseless in progression;
They triumph in their hour of brief possession.
Then Summer comes, with her voluptuous rose,
And sweet carnation in half-blown repose;

The plant where pious minds discern the passion,
The death by which we live. But I was born
When the good year was like a man of fifty,
When the wild crabtree show'd a naked thorn,
And tall brown fern disguised the red deer's horn;
Like meats upon a board, august yet thrifty,

Large flowers blaze out at intervals forlorn.

XII.

SEPTEMBER.

THE dark green Summer, with its massive hues,
Fades into Autumn's tincture manifold.

A gorgeous garniture of fire and gold

The high slope of the ferny hill indues.

The mists of morn in slumbering layers diffuse
O'er glimmering rock, smooth lake, and spiked array
Of hedge-row thorns, a unity of grey.

All things appear their tangible form to lose

In ghostly vastness.

But anon the gloom

Melts, as the Sun puts off his muddy veil;

And now the birds their twittering songs resume,

All Summer silent in the leafy dale.

In Spring they piped of love on every tree,

But now they sing the song of

memory.

XIII.

NOVEMBER.

Now the last leaves are hanging on the trees,
And very few the flowers that glint along

The deep dark lanes and braes, erewhile as throng
With peeping posies as the limes with bees;
Nought in the garden but stiff sticks of peas,
And climbing weeds inextricably strong;
And scarce a fragment of autumnal song
Whistles above the surly morning breeze.
Yet still at eve we hear the merry owl,
That sings not sweetly, but he does his best;
The little brown bird with the scarlet vest

Chirrups away, though distant storms do howl.
Then let us not at dark November scowl,

But wait for Christmas with a cheerful breast.

XIV.

WRITTEN IN A PERIOD OF GREAT MONETARY DISTRESS.

THOUGH Night and Winter are two gloomy things,
Yet Night has stars, and Winter has the moss,
And the wee pearly goblets that emboss

The lumbering wall on which the redbreast sings.
Now the old year spreads wide his dusky wings,
And hovers o'er his many children dead;
Few are the blessings on his hoary head
Bestow'd by hearts whom cruel memory wrings,
And sad forebodings, for no stars are seen
In the dull night and winter of distress.
The chaliced mosses and the velvet green,
That clothe November with a seemly dress,
As furry spoils that warm the red-hair'd Russ,
Shield not the poor from blasts impiteous.

November 3, 1847.