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Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn ;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies..

AUTUMN WOODS.

Keats.

RE, in the northern gale,

The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn all around our vale
Have put their glory on.

The mountains that enfold

In their wide sweep the colour'd landscape round,
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,
That guard the enchanted ground.

I roam the woods that crown

The upland, where the mingled splendours glow-
Where the gay company of trees look down
On the green fields below.

My steps are not alone

In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at play, Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strewn Along the winding way.

And far in heaven, the while,

The sun that sends that gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,
The sweetest of the year.

Where now the solemn shade,

Verdure and gloom, where many branches meet;
So grateful when the noon of summer made
The valleys rich with heat?

Let in through all the trees

Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright, Their sunny-colour'd foliage in the breeze

Twinkles, like beams of light.

The rivulet, late unseen,

Where, bickering through the shrubs, its waters run, Shines with the image of its golden screen,

And glimmerings of the sun.

Beneath yon crimson tree,

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,

Nor mark within its roseate canopy

Her blush of maiden shame.

Oh, Autumn, why so soon

Depart the hues that make thy forests glad,
Thy gentle wind, and thy fair sunny noon,
And leave thee wild and sad!

Ah! 't were a lot too bless'd

For ever in thy colour'd shades to stray;
Amid the tresses of the soft south-west,
To rove and dream for aye;

And leave the vain, low strife

That makes men mad-the tug for wealth and power,

The passions and the cares that wither life,

And waste its little hour.

OCTOBER.

Bryant.

THE

year is now declining; and the air,
When morning blushes on the orient hills,
Embued with icy chillness. Ocean's wave
Has lost the tepid glow, and slumbering fogs
On clouded days brood o'er its level plain;
Yet, when the day is at meridian height,
The sun athwart the fading landscape smiles
With most paternal kindness, softly sweet,
And delicately beautiful,-a prince

Blessing the realms whose glory comes from him.
The foliage of the forest, brown and sere,
Drops on the margin of the stubble field,
In which the partridge lingers insecure,
And raises oft, at sombre eventide,

With plaintive throat, her dull and tremulous cry!
The sickle of the husbandman hath ceased,

And left the lap of Nature shorn and bare;

The odorous clover flowers have disappear'd;

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The yellow pendulous grain is seen no more,
The perfume of the bean-field has decay'd;
And roams the wandering bee o'er many a path,
For blossoms which have perish'd. Grassy blades,
Transparent, taper, and of sickly growth,
Shoot, soon to wither, in the sterile fields.

The garden fruits have mellow'd with the year,
And, save the lingering apricot, remains

Nor trace nor token of the summer's wealth!
Yet, on the wild-brier stands the yellow hip;
And, from the branches of the mountain-ash,
The clustering berries drop their crimson beads
Descending. On the dark laburnum's sides,
Mix pods of lighter green among the leaves,
Taper, and springless, hasting to decay;
And on the wintry honeysuckle's stalk
The succulent berries hang.

The robin sits

Upon the mossy gateway, singing clear

A requiem to the glory of the woods.

And, when the breeze awakes, a frequent shower

Of wither'd leaves bestrews the weedy paths,

Or from the branches of the willow whirl,

With rustling sound, upon the turbid stream.

Anon.

AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE.

AR and wide

Nature is smiling in her loveliness.
Masses of wood, green strips of fields, ravines,
Shown by their outlines drawn against the hills,
Chimneys and roofs, trees, single and in groups,
Bright curves of brooks, and vanishing mountain-top,
Expand upon my sight. October's brush

The scene has colour'd; not with those broad hues

Mix'd in his later pallet by the frost,

And dash'd upon the picture till the eye

Aches with varied splendour, but in tints

Left by light, scatter'd touches. Overhead
There is a blending of cloud, haze, and sky,

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