AUTUMN.

EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd and plump the hazel-shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes, whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twinèd 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.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

KEATS.

WEET Bird, that sing'st away the early hours.
Of winters past or coming-void of care,
Well pleased with delights which present are;
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers;
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare ;
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs,

Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven ?

DRUMMOND.

A FARM-YARD IN WINTER.

HOUGH night approaching bids for rest prepare,
Still the flail echoes through the frosty air,
Nor stops till deepest shades of darkness come,
Sending at length the weary labourer home.

From him, with bed and nightly food supplied,
Throughout the yard, housed round on every side
Deep-plunging cows their rustling feast enjoy,
And snatch sweet mouthfuls from the passing boy,
Who moves unseen beneath his trailing load,
Fills the tall racks, and leaves a scattered road.

BLOOMFIELD,

NEST OF THE NIGHTINGALE.

U

P this green woodland side let's softly rove,
And list the nightingale; she dwells just here.
Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear

The noise might drive her from her home of love;
For here I've heard her many a merry year—

At morn, at eve-nay, all the live-long day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot,
Just where the old-man's-beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours o'er the road, and stops the way;
And where the child its blue-bell flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails;
There have I hunted like a very boy,

Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn,
To find her nest, and see her feed her young,
And vainly did I many hours employ:

All seem'd as hidden as a thought unborn;
And where those crumbling fern-leaves ramp among
The hazel's under-boughs I've nestled down
And watch'd her while she sang; and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress than russet brown.
Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,
And feathers stand on end, as 'twere with joy ;
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part

Of summer's fame she shared, for so to me
Did happy fancy shapen her employ.

But if I touch'd a bush, or scarcely stirr'd,
All in a moment stopt. I watch'd in vain :
The timid bird had left the hazel-bush,
And oft in distance hid to sing again.
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,
Rich ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spurr'd the emulating thrush

To start less wild and scarce inferior songs;
For while of half the year care him bereaves,
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast,
The nightingale to summer's life belongs,
And naked trees, and winter's nipping wrongs
Are strangers to her music, and her rest.
Her joys are ever green-her world is wide!
Hark! there she is, as usual; let's be hush;
For in this black-thorn clump, if rightly guess'd,
Her curious house is hidden. Part aside

Those hazel-branches in a gentle way,

And stoop right cautious 'neath the rustling boughs,

For we will have another search to-day,

And hunt this fern-strewn thorn-clump round and round; And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows,

We'll wade right through; it is a likely nook.

In such like spots, and often on the ground,

They'll build, where rude boys never think to look.

Ay! as I live! her secret nest is here,

Upon this white-thorn stump! * * *
We will not plunder music of its dower,

Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall,

For melody seems hid in every flower

That blossoms near thy home. These blue-bells all
Seem bowing with the beautiful in song;

And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves,

Seems blushing of the singing it has heard.

How curious is the nest! No other bird