Warm summer! Yes, the very word is warm;
The hum of bees is in it, and the sight
Of sunny fountains glancing silver light,
And the rejoicing world, and every charm
Of happy nature in her hour of love,
Fruits, flowers, and flies, in rainbow-glory bright:
The smile of God glows graciously above,
And genial earth is grateful; day by day
Old faces come again with blossoms gay,
Gemming in gladness meadow, garden, grove:
Haste with thy harvest, then, my softened heart,
Awake thy better hopes of better days,
Bring in thy fruits and flowers of thanks and praise,
And in creation's paean take thy part.
How different in sterner beauty was the landscape not long since! The
energies of universal life prisoned up in temporary obstruction; every
black hedge-row tufted with woolly snow, like some Egyptian mother
mourning for her children; shrubs and plants fettered up in glittering
chains, motionless as those stone-struck feasters before the head of
Gorgon; and the dark-green fir-trees swathed in heavy curtains of
iridescent whiteness. Contrast is ever pleasurable; therefore we need
scarcely apologize for an ice in the dog-days--I mean for this present
unseasonable introduction of dead