English

Green fields and music. Like a cheerful bard
With song surrounded, gushing where she treads,
Comes joyous June. The great trees bow their heads
Full-leaf'd. On cliff and common hard
Are marks of Summer's fingers. Beauty-starr'd
Are all the walks of Nature: gentle eyes
Peer out from grassy windows, and the skies
Are bridged with feathery clouds where angels glide.
Turn we to earth? The briony and rose
In the green lane are clustering side by side:
And clover-scents, in showers, are wafted wide

Beautiful vestal clad in freshest green,
Fragrant with hyacinths and flowerets wild!
Of the twelve months, come, let me crown thee queen.
Lover of murmuring brooks and music mild!
The year has not a fairer, lovelier child.
Now lambs play in the fields with daisies white,
The cuckoo's voice flows full among the leaves,
The lark far up is singing out of sight,
And the glad thatcher whistles on the eaves.
The robin's nest scarce shows among the moss,
From hill and valley rings a gladsome lay,

With one cheek tear-wet, and the other bright
With passing sunshine, beauty in her eyes;
On her green garments buds of richest dyes;
Her fair brow bound with leaflets, in the light
Winking and shining, like a timid maid,
Blushing with freshness, seeming half afraid,
Comes changeful April. Violets fill one hand;
And these she scatters o'er the vernal land.
Studding the hedge-rows by the lone sheepfold,
And hanging gems in Nature's silent bowers.
The other doth an urn of waters hold,

With fresh gales rushing through the shivering trees,
Drives crashing March. The white clouds southward fly,
And up between them shine blue fields of sky.
The lark's first carol rings among the leas.
Now search the moorlands for the earliest flower,
Timidly blushing 'neath the tempest's wing,
Violet and primrose in the shelter'd bower;
While little lambs are sporting by the spring.
Beside their teams the merry plough-boys sing.
Twitter the birds where golden furze-flowers shine;
The crocus blossoms in the garden ring,

Snow -drifts and ice! Hush'd is the forest-strain,
Save the small chirrup of the busy wren.
And, like a monster moaning as in pain,
The great blast tumbles through the dreary fen,
Sweeps the bare hill, and groans along the glen.
Against the white drift on the frozen plain
The gentle snowdrop rests its drooping head;
Looking so beautiful, as if it came
From that dear land where holy angels tread.
O floweret fair, 'mid storm and whirlwind bred,
White as the cold snow which around thee lies,

The New Year wakens like a peevish child
In Winter's chamber. Nature, his dear nurse,
Rocks him upon a rolling cradle-cloud,
While the cold winds lift up their voices loud,
Filling the under world with strainings wild, —
A tempest lullaby! In heaps up-piled
The white snow fills the land, a drapery chaste,
On mead productive, moor, and rocky waste.
Echoes the flail from the old barn of thatch,
The wild duck shelters in the frozen fen,
The redbreast hops upon the wooden latch,
And King Frost lords it o'er the icy glen.

LI - PO;

OR, THE GOOD GOVERNOR .

A Chinese Eclogue

Where Honan's hills Kiansi's vale inclose,
And Xifa's lake its glassy leve! shows;
Li-po's fair island lay — delightful seene! —
With swelling slopes, and groves of every green:
On azure rocks his rich pavilion plac'd,
Rear'd its light front with golden columns grac'd;
High o'er the roof a weeping willow hung,
And jasmine boughs the lattice twin'd among;
In porcelain vases crested amaranth grew,

SERIM:

OR, THE ARTIFICIAL FAMINE :

An East-Indian Eclogue.

" O Guardian-Genius of this sacred wave!
O save thy sons, if thine the power to save!"
So Serim spoke, as sad on Ganges' shore
He sat, his country's miseries to deplore —
" O Guardian Genius of this sacred wave!
O save thy sons, if thine the power to save!
From Agra's towers to Muxadabat's" walls,
On thee for aid the suffering Hindoo calls;
Europe's fell race control the wide domain,

OR, THE ABSENT LOVER :

An Arabian Eclogue

K ORASA'S tribe, a frequent-wandering train
From Zenan's pastures sought Negiran's plain.
With them Semira left her favourite shades,
The loveliest nymph of Yemen's sportive maids!
Her parting hand her fair companions press'd;
A transient sorrow touch'd each tender breast;
As some thin cloud across the morning ray
Casts one short moment's gloom, and glides away;
Their cares, their sports, they hasted soon to tend,

Old tones
Of some glad tune, first heard long years ago,
When to their music life went gladly too,
If heard once more when life, after long years,
Goes not at all, but rests, in him that hears
Awaken thus the wild unwonted spasm
Of life's long-buried old enthusiasm.
Earth under earth, the earthly instinct, raised
By earthly praises in the corpse thus praised,
Return'd to life.
She rose I' the tomb, and said,
" Open! and let me forth. I am not dead.
For men yet praise me, and their praises give