e's a gleam of Winter wheat
Far on the hill; down in the woods
A very heaven of stillness broods;
And through the mellow sun's worn heat,
Lo! tender pulses round thee beat,
O late and sweet!

IV.

There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes
Can trace it midst familiar things and through their lowly guise;
We may find it when a hedgerow showers its blossoms o'er our way,
Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last red light of day.

_F. Hemans._

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

V.

Half covered with last year's leaves,
She peeped from her russet bed;

The great bare branches of the trees
Were tossed and swayed overhead;

The hedge looked barren and prickly,
Without the sign of a leaf;
Over the flower there bowed a heart
Grown cold with the snows of grief.

The violet's fragile petals
Enfolded a heart of gold,
And a deeper wealth of perfume,
Than the tiny cup could hold;
So the great wind roaring above
Sent a tiny zephyr down,
To drift aside the sheltering bloom,
And bereave her of her crown.

It stole the familiar scent,
To give to the burdened heart
With only a cold north wind
In the world to take its part;
The flower died in the bleak March air,
And the heart went on its way;
The violet's life was blooming there,
And melting the snows away.

_Caris Brooke._

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

VI.

Yet nature holds a gracious hand,
Her ancient ways pursuing;
And spreads the charms we loved of old,
To aid the heart's renewing.

Here her long crests of fringed crag
Allure the skyward swallows;
Here the still dove's low love-note floats
Above her leafy hollows.

Here its calm strength her hillside rears,
From heaving slopes of clover;
Here still the pewit pipes and flits
Within his furzy cover.

Here hums the wild-bee in the thyme,
Here glows the royal heather;
And youth comes back upon the breeze,
And youth's unclouded weather.

_F.T. Palgrave._

[Illustration: Here hums the wild bee in the thyme]

[Illustration]

VII.

AN APPEAL.

Dear, do not die!
Of cypresses and grassy graves sing I--
I hang with wreaths of song death's grief-grown cross,
And weep, to music, for Life's infinite loss,
And make the sweetest verse of bitterest woe,
--