With footing worne, and leading inward far: Faire harbour that them seems; so in they entred are. And forth they passe, with pleasure forward led, Joying to heare the birdes' sweete harmony, Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred, Seemed in their song to scorne the cruell sky. Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sayling pine; the cedar proud and tall; The vine-propp elme; the poplar never dry; The builder oake, sole king of forrests all; The aspine good for staves; the cypresse funerall; The laurel meed of mightie conquerours And poets sage; the fir that weepeth still; The willow, worne of forlorne paramours; The yew, obedient to the bender's Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea, And drew their sounding bows at Azincour; Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers. Of vast circumference and gloom profound This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnifi cent To be destroyed. But worthier still of note Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with fantasy, and looks That threaten the profane; a pillared shade, Upon whose grassless floor of redbrown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially; beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes May meet at noontide; Fear, and trembling Hope, Silence, and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered Beneath the lowly alder-tree, And we will sleep a pleasant sleep, And not a care shall dare intrude To break the marble solitude, And hark! the wind-god, as he flies, Sweet flower! that requiem wild It warns me to the lonely shrine, Where as I lie, by all forgot, A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed. H. K. WHITE. THE PRIMROSE. Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the yeere? Ask me why I send to you This Primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew? I will whisper to your eares, The sweets of love are mixt with tears. Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. KEATS. THE NIGHTINGALE. As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Which a grove of myrtles made, spring, Every thing did banish moan, None takes pity on thy pain: Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee, Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee; King Pandiva, he is dead, All thy friends are lapp'd in lead: R. BARNEFIELD, THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG. ROUND my own pretty rose I have hovered all day, I have seen its sweet leaves one by one fall away: |