And pause and pray, And think how little worth, Is all that frets our hearts on earth. The sun had sunk, and the summer skies For the Evening, in her robe of white, Smiled o'er sea and land, with pensive eyes, To the lords of convention 'twas Claver'se who spoke, Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat; With sour featured whigs the Grassmarket was crammed, There was spite in each look, there was fear in each ee, These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, And they shrunk to close heads, and the causeway was free, "Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks- BORDER BALLAD. BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale, Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order? All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the border. Flutters above your head, Many a crest that is famous in story. Mount and make ready then, Sons of the mountain glen, Fight for the queen and our old Scottish glory. Come from the hills where your hirsels are grazing, Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing, War steeds are bounding; Stand to your arms, then, and march in good order, Tell of the bloody fray, TO THE DANDELION. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. This poem, like Bryant's "Waterfowl," like many of Longfellow's, speaks of the objects of nature in a reflective, almost religious tone, portraying the love of our American poets for "these living pages of God's book." Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An El Dorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art Than all the prouder summer Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Through the primeval hush of Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age to rob the lover's heart Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest Are in the heart, and heed not space or time. Not in mid-June the gold cuirassed bee Feels a more summerlike warm ravishment His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, Did we but pay the love we owe. And with a child's undoubting wisdom look, |