When the south wind, in May days, Silvers the horizon wall, And with softness touching all, Tints the human countenance With a color of romance, Hot midsummer's petted crone, Aught unsavory or unclean Hath my insect never seen; Maple-sap and daffodels, Grass with green flag half-mast high, Succory to match the sky, Wiser far than human seer, Thou dost mock at fate and care, Leave the chaff and take the wheat; Ralph Waldo Emerson. INDIAN SUMMER FROM gold to gray Our mild, sweet day Of Indian summer fades too soon; But tenderly Above the sea Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon. In its pale fire Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance ; The painted walls Transfigured stand in marble trance. John Greenleaf Whittier. TWILIGHT THE twilight is sad and cloudy, But in the fisherman's cottage Close, close it is pressed to the window, Were looking into the darkness To see some form arise. And a woman's waving shadow Now bowing and bending low. What tale do the roaring ocean And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, And why do the roaring ocean, And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the color from her cheek? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. MARCH THE cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising ; There are forty feeding like one. Like an army defeated On the top of the bare hill; There's life in the fountains; Blue sky prevailing, The rain is over and gone. William Wordsworth. ALEC YEATON'S SON Gloucester, August, 1720. THE wind it wailed, the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had not my boy with me! Snug in the stern-sheets, little John But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan "Would he were at his mother's side!" And the skipper's eyes were dim. "Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide, What would become of him! "For me, my muscles are as steel, I might make shift upon the keel "But he, he is so weak and small, So young, scarce learned to stand, O pitying Father of us all, I trust him in thy hand! "For thou, who markest from on high Surely, O Lord, thou 'lt have an eye |