Faint oxslips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that

wets

Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth— Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!-O to whom? PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

SPIRIT OF DELIGHT

I cannot leave this out; I believe even children will begin to love it now and love it better later.

RARELY, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not near,

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure;

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure;

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;

Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;

I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost

Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,
And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;

Between thee and me

What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,
And like light can flee,

But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee—

Thou art love and life! Oh, come,
Make once more my heart thy home.

PERCY BYSShe Shelley.

THE THRUSH'S NEST

If more boys stopped to wonder at the building of a nest by the pecking of mere beaks, there would be less birds' nesting done. Ruskin has written that we have "joy and reverence in looking at a honeycomb or a bird's nest; we understand that these differ, by divinity of skill, from a lump of wax or a cluster of sticks.”

WITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to eve a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and often, an intruding guest,

I watched her secret toil from day to dayHow true she warped the moss, to form a nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay; And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue;

And there I witnessed in the sunny hours A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.

JOHN CLARE.

TO A WATERFOWL

Note how from a simple moral thought is made here a most noble and majestic poem.

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-
The desert, and illimitable air-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere; Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near !

And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.