THE BOURNE.

UNDERN

INDERNEATH the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass.

Youth and health will be but vain,
Beauty reckoned of no worth:
There a very little girth

Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain.

W

SUMMER.

INTER is cold-hearted,

Spring is yea and nay,

Autumn is a weathercock

Blown every way :

Summer days for me

When every leaf is on its tree;

When Robin's not a beggar,

And Jenny Wren's a bride,

And larks hang singing, singing, singing,
Over the wheat-fields wide,
And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider

Swings from side to side,

And blue-black beetles transact business,

And gnats fly in a host, And furry caterpillars hasten That no time be lost,

And moths grow fat and thrive,

And ladybirds arrive.

Before green apples blush,

Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country.
Is worth a month in town;
Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
That days drone elsewhere.

I

AUTUMN.

DWELL alone, I dwell alone, alone,

Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,
Gilded with flashing boats

That bring no friend to me :

O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,
O love-pangs, let me be.

Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone And spices bear to sea:

Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes, Love-promising, entreating,

Ah! sweet, but fleeting,

Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails.
Hush the wind flags and fails,

Hush they will lie becalmed in sight of strand, —
Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone;

Their songs wake singing echoes in my land,
They cannot hear me moan.

One latest, solitary swallow flies

Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest tost,
Poor bird, shall it be lost?

Dropped down into this uncongenial sea,
With no kind eyes

To watch it while it dies,

Unguessed, uncared for, free:

Set free at last,

The short pang past,

In sleep, in death, in dreamless sleep locked fast.

Mine avenue is all a growth of oaks,

Some rent by thunder-strokes,

Some rustling leaves and acorns in the breeze :
Fair fall my fertile trees,

That rear their goodly heads, and live at ease.

A spider's web blocks all mine avenue;
He catches down and foolish painted flies,
That spider wary and wise.

Each morn it hangs a rainbow strung with dew
Betwixt boughs green with sap,

So fair, few creatures guess it is a trap:
I will not mar the web,

Though sad I am to see the small lives ebb.

It shakes,

my trees shake; for a wind is roused In cavern where it housed :

Each white and quivering sail,

Of boats among the water leaves

Hollows and strains in the full-throated gale:
Each maiden sings again,

Each languid maiden, whom the calm

Had lulled to sleep with rest and spice and balm

Miles down my river to the sea

They float and wane,

Long miles away from me.

Perhaps they say: "She grieves,

Uplifted, like a beacon, on her tower."
Perhaps they say: "One hour

More, and we dance among the golden sheaves."

Perhaps they say: "One hour

More, and we stand,

Face to face, hand in hand;

Make haste, O slack gale, to the looked-for land!"

My trees are not in flower,

I have no bower,

And gusty creaks my tower,

And lonesome, very lonesome, is my strand.

THE GHOST'S PETITION.

HERE's a footstep coming: look out and

"THE

see."

"The leaves are falling, the wind is calling; No one cometh across the lea."

"There's a footstep coming: O sister, look.""The ripple flashes, the white foam dashes; No one cometh across the brook."

"But he promised that he would come : To-night, to-morrow, in joy or sorrow,

He must keep his word, and must come home.