But had you seen him, lady, in his ire,
When, like one born of thunder, he did march
And strike down men as stubble sinks in fire--
But then he hath a tongue could wile
The laverock from the cloud.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
52. Within his soul
Springs up a deep sense of the beautiful,
The holy, the exalted, and a love
Embracing in its circle all creation.
LADY FLORA HASTINGS.
53. He so light is at legerdemain,
That what he touches comes not to light again.
SPENSER.
54. Though learn'd, well-bred; and though well-bred, sincere;
Modestly bold, and humanely severe.
POPE.
55. To express his mind to sense,
Would ask a heaven's intelligence,
Since nothing can report that flame
But what's of kin to whence it came.
BEN JONSON.
56. A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,
That holds his precious self his dear delight,
And loves his own smart shadow in the street.
BURNS.
57. No caprice of mind,
No passing influence of idle time,
No popular show, no clamor from the crowd
Can move him, erring, from the path of right.
W. G. SIMMS.
58. Wasting his life for his country's care,
Laying it down with a patriot's prayer.
BARRY CORNWALL.
59. A man whose sober soul can tell
How to wear her garments well,
Her garments that upon her sit
As garments should do, close and fit;
A well-clothed soul, that's not oppress'd
Nor choked with what she should be dress'd;
A soul sheath'd in a crystal shrine,
Through which all her bright features shine.
CRASHAW.
60. And still we gaze, and still the wonder grows,
That one small head can carry all he knows.
GOLDSMITH--_Deserted Village_.
WHAT SEASON OF THE YEAR DO YOU LOVE?
January gray is here,
Like a sexton by a grave;
February bears the bier,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps; but oh, ye hours,
Follow with May's fairest flowers.
SHELLEY.
The seasons of the year,
----some arm'd in silver ice that glisten,
And some in gaudy green, come in like masquers.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
WHAT SEASON OF THE YEAR DO YOU LOVE?
1. The bold _March_ wind!
The merry, boisterous, bold March wind!
Who in the violet's tender eyes
Casts a kiss,--and forward flies.
BARRY CORNWALL.
2. The beautiful spirit of _Spring_,
When the demons of Winter before her fly,
While the gentle fan of her delicate wing
Repels the ardor of Summer's eye.
JAMES NACK.
3. Thou lovest the merry _Summer_ months of beauty, song, and
flowers,
Thou lovest the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to
bowers!
Up, up, thy heart, and walk abroad, fling cark and care aside,
Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide,
Or, underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree,
Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquillity.
MOTHERWELL.
4. The _eventide of Summer_, when the trees
Yield their fresh honors to the passing breeze,
And woodland paths with autumn tints are dyed;
When the mild sun his paling lustre shrouds
In gorgeous draperies of golden clouds.
MRS. E. C. EMBURY.
5. When on the breath of _Autumn_ breeze,
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating, like an idle thought,
The fair white thistle-down.
MARY HOWITT.
6. A day of _Winter_ beauty. Through the night
The hoar-frost gather'd o'er each leaf and spray,
Weaving its filmy net-work, thin and bright,
And shimmering like silver in the ray
Of the soft sunny morning;--turf and tree
Prank'd in delicate embroidery,
And every wither'd stump and mossy stone
With gems encrusted and with seed-pearls sown!
MRS. WHITMAN.
7. When _May_,
With her cap crown'd with roses,
Stands in her holiday dress in the fields, and the wind and the
brooklet
Murmur gladness and peace, God's peace! with lips rosy tinted,
Whisper the race of the flowers, and merry, on balancing branches,
Birds are singing their carol, a jubilant hymn to the Highest.
LONGFELLOW.
8. _Autumn eventide_;
When sinking on the blue hill's breast, the sun
Spreads the large bounty of his level blaze,
Lengthening the shade of mountains and tall trees.
GEORGE LUNT.
9. When on a keen _December_ night, Jack Frost
Drives through mid air his chariot icy-wheel'd,
And from the sky's crisp ceiling, star-emboss'd,
Whiffs off the clouds that the pure blue concealed.
TENNENT--_Anster Fair_.
10. When _Spring_, advancing, calls her feather'd quire,
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Musk'd in the rose's lap fresh dews are shed,
And breathe celestial lustres round her head.
DARWIN.
11. _June_ with its roses,----June!
The gladdest month of the capricious year,
With its thick foliage, and its sunlight clear,
And with a drowsy tune
Of the bright leaping waters, as they pass
Laughingly on, amid the springing grass!
W. H. BURLEIGH.
12. When _Autumn_, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside, a-weary.
LONGFELLOW.
13. _Winter_, shod with fleecy snow,
Who cometh _white_, and _cold_, and _mute_,
Lest he should wake the Spring below.
BARRY CORNWALL.
14. When the south wind in _May_ days,
With a net of shining haze,
Silvers the horizon wall;
And with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a color of romance,
And infusing gentle heats,
Turns the sod to violets.
R. W. EMERSON.
15. When _Spring's_ unfolded blooms
Exhale in sweetness, that the skilful bee
May taste, at will, from their selected spoils,
To work her dulcet sweet.
AKENSIDE--_Pleasures of the Imagination_.
16. The joyous _Winter_ days,
When sits the soul intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
THOMSON.
17. The _Spring_, as she passes along
With her eye of light, and her lip of song.
W. G. CLARK.
18. _October!_ Heaven's delicious breath,
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek sun grows brief,
And the year smiles, as drawing near its death.
W. C. BRYANT.
19. The _April_ rain! the _April_ rain!
To list the pleasant sound,
Now soft and still like gentle dew,
Now drenching all the ground.
Pray tell me why an April shower
Is pleasanter to see,
Than falling drops of other rain?
I'm sure it is to thee.
MRS. SEBA SMITH.
20. _Spring_, when from yon blue-topp'd mountain
She leaves her green print 'neath each spreading tree,
Her tuneful voice beside the swelling fountain
Giving sweet notes to its wild melody.
JULIA H. SCOTT.
21. A season _atween June and May_,
Half prankt with Spring, with summer half embrown'd.
THOMSON--_Castle of Indolence_.
22. When comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees
are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill;
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he
bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood, and by the stream no more.
W. C. BRYANT.
23. Brave _Winter_ and thou shalt ever agree,
Though a stern and frowning gaffer is he;
You like to hear him, with hail and rain,
Come tapping against the window pane;
You joy to see him come marching forth,
Begirt with the icicle gems of the north;
But you like him best when he comes bedight
In his velvet robes of stainless white.
ELIZA COOK.
24. When "adieu!" father Winter has sadly said
To the world, when about withdrawing,
With his old white wig half off his head,
And his icicle fingers _thawing_!
MISS H. F. GOULD.
25. Gentle _May_,
She with her robe of flowers;
She with her sun and sky, her clouds and showers!
Who bringeth forth unto the eye of day,
From their imprisoning and mysterious night,
The buds of many hues, the children of her light.
J. LAWRENCE, JR.
26. The last days of _Autumn_, when the corn
Lies sweet and mellow in the harvest-field,
And the gay company of reapers bind
The bearded wheat in sheaves.
I. MCLELLAN.
27. Drear _Winter!_
With no unholy awe we hear thy voice,
As by our dying embers, safely housed,
We in deep silence muse.
H. K. WHITE.
28. You love to go in the capricious days
Of _April_, and hunt violets, when the rain
Is in their blue cups, trembling as they nod
So gracefully, to kisses of the wind.
N. P. WILLIS.
29. Merry, ever merry May!
Made of sun-gleams, shades, and showers,
Bursting buds, and breathing flowers;
Dripping-lock'd, and rosy-vested,
Violet-slipper'd, rainbow-crested,
Girdled with the eglantine,
Festoon'd with the flowering vine!
GALLAGHER.
30. When the warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year,
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
SHELLEY.
31. When the angel of dread _Winter_ cometh,
But not in anger. As he speeds along,
Borne on the chilling wind, he bids appear
A thousand varied hues the trees among!
What magic beauty doth his presence fling
Round every leaf that quivers in the dell,
Or shrub that to the mountain side doth cling!
And the bright scene the calm lake mirrors well,
As if within its depths were wove some golden spell.
H. F. HARRINGTON.
32. Delicious Spring!
Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers,
Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing
From odorous buds of light-enfolded flowers,
And from enmassed bowers,
That over grassy walks their greenness fling.
ALBERT PIKE.
33. The Summer, the radiant Summer's the fairest,
For green woods and mountains, for meadows and bowers,
For waters and fruits, and for flowers the rarest,
And for bright shining butterflies, lovely as flowers.
MARY HOWITT.
34. When _September's_ golden day,
Serenely still, intensely bright,
Fades on the umber'd hills away
And melts into the coming night.
MRS. WHITMAN.
35. When Autumn chills the foliage, and sheds
O'er the piled leaves, among the evergreens,
All colors and all tints to grace the scene.
RUFUS DAWES.
36. Ho! jewel-keeper of the hoary North!
Whence hast thou all thy treasures? Why, the mines
Of rich Golconda, since the world was young,
Would fail to furnish such a glorious show!
Yes, the _Wintry_ king,
So long decried, hath revenue more rich
Than sparkling diamonds!
MRS. SIGOURNEY.
37. When _Spring_
From sunny slopes comes wandering,
Calling violets from the sleep,
That bound them under the snow-drift deep,
To open their childlike, asking eyes
On the new summer paradise.
J. R. LOWELL.
38. Autumn! how lovely is thy pensive air!
But chief the sounds from thy reft woods delight;
Their deep, low murmurs to the soul impart
A solemn stillness.
MRS. TIGHE--_Psyche._
39. When _Winter_ nights grow long,
And winds without blow cold,
And we sit in a ring round the warm hearth-fire,
And listen to stories old.
BARRY CORNWALL.
40. _Spring_;
When blushing like a bride from Hope's trim bower,
She leaps, awakened by the pattering shower.
COLERIDGE.
41. _Autumn_ dark on the mountains; when gray mists rest on the
hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river
through the narrow plain. The leaves whirl with the wind, and
strew the graves of the dead.
OSSIAN.
42. When the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear;
Disclose the long-expected flowers,
And wake the purple year.
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of _Spring_;
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs, through the clear blue sky,
Their gather'd fragrance fling.
GRAY.
43. When golden _Autumn_ from her open lap
The fragrant bounty showers.
SOMERVILLE--_The Chace_.
44. Dark _Winter_ is a happy time:
God gives the earth repose, and earth bids man
Wipe his hot brow; the poet pours his rhyme,
And mirth awakes.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
45. When _Spring-tide_ approaches;
Leaf by leaf is developed, and warm'd by the radiant sunshine,
Blushes with purple and gold, till at last the perfected blossom
Opens its odorous chalice, and rocks with its crown to the breeze.
LONGFELLOW.
46. The first day of _May_,
When the sun is rejoicing alone in heaven,
The clouds have all hurried away.
Down in the meadow the blossoms are waking,
Light on their twigs the young leaves are shaking,
Round the warm knolls the lambs are a-leaping,
The colt from his fold o'er the pasture is sweeping,
And on the bright lake,
The little waves break,
For there the cool west is at play.
J. G. PERCIVAL.
47. The desolate and dying year,
Yet lovely in its lifelessness,
As beauty stretch'd upon the bier,
In death's clay-cold and dark caress;
There's loveliness in its decay,
Which breathes, which lingers on it still.
J. G. BROOKS.
48. Pale, rugged _Winter_, bending o'er his tread,
His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew;
His eyes a dusky light, congeal'd and dead,
His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.
CHATTERTON.
49. The uncertain glory of an _April_ day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the skies,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona._
50. When the sun
More darkly tinges Spring's fair brow,
And laughing fields have just begun
The _Summer's_ golden hues to show;
Earth still with flowers is richly dight,
And the _last_ rose in gardens bides to glow.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
51. The pryde, the _manhode_ of the yeare,
When eke the ground is dight in its most deft[B] aumere.[C]
ROWLEY--(_Chatterton_.)
[B] Ornamental.
[C] Mantle.
52. An _Autumn_ night
With a piercing sight,
And a step both strong and free;
And a voice for wonder,
Like the wrath of the thunder,
When he shouts to the stormy sea!
BARRY CORNWALL.
53. When _Spring's_ first gale
Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie.
MRS. HEMANS.
54. When
The breath of _Winter_ comes from far away,
And the rich west continually bereaves
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves.
KEATS.
55. When _Spring_ pours out his showers, as is his wont,
And bathes the breathing tresses of meek eve.
COLLINS.
56. _Autumn_ skies, when all the woods are hung
With many tints, the fading livery
Of life, in which it mourns the coming storms
Of winter; when the quiet winds awake
Faint dirges in the wither'd leaves, and breathe
Their sorrow through the grove.
PERCIVAL.
57. Sweet _Spring_, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie.
OLD HERBERT.
58. When a soft haze is hanging o'er the hill,
Tinged with a purple light. How beautiful,
And yet how cold! 'Tis the first robe put on
By sad _October_.
W. G. SIMMS.
59. _Spring_ doeth all she can, I trow;
She brings the bright hours,
She weaves the sweet flowers,
She dresseth her bowers
For all below.
BARRY CORNWALL.
60. _Spring time_,
Which crumbles Winter's gyves with tender might,
When in the genial breeze, (the breath of God,)
Come spouting up the unseal'd springs to light,
Flowers start from their dark prisons at our feet,
And woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet.
BRYANT.
WHAT HOUR DO YOU LOVE?
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! A simple train
Yet so delightful, mix'd with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined,
Shade unperceived so softening into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That as they still succeed, they ravish still.
THOMSON.
The winged Hours!
Commission'd in alternate watch they stand,
The sun's bright portals, and the skies, command;
Close or unfold the eternal gates of day,
Bar heaven with clouds, or roll those clouds away.
DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.
WHAT HOUR DO YOU LOVE?
1. When, from ebon streak,
The _moon_ puts forth a little diamond peak,
No bigger than an unobserved star,
Or tiny point of fairy cimeter;
Bright signal, that she only stoops to tie
Her silver sandals, ere deliciously
She bows into the heavens her timid head.
KEATS.
2. When _morning_ cometh, with a still
And gliding mystery, on the breaking gray
Of the fresh east.
W. G. SIMMS.
3. When the _stars_ are out--
Cold, but still beautiful,--a crowded choir,
Harmonious in their heavenly minstrelsy.
RUFUS DAWES.
4. When blue-eyed day
Has yielded up her regency, and _night_,
Exceeding beautiful, resumes her right
As solemn watchman.
MISS M. E. LEE.
5. When sunk the sun, and up the eastern heaven,
Like maiden on a lonely pilgrimage,
Moves the meek star of eve.
MILMAN.
6. When _Phoebus_, fresh as bridegroom to his mate,
Comes dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre,
And hurls his glistering beams through gloomy ayre.
SPENSER.
7. When on the sunlit limits of the night,
Her white shell trembling amid crimson air,
Glides the _young moon_.
SHELLEY.
8. When clouds lay cradled near the _setting sun_,
And gleams of crimson tinge their braided snow.
WILSON.
9. When the glorious sun has gone,
And the gathering darkness of _night comes on_;
Like a curtain from God's kind hand it flows,
To shade the couch where his children repose.
H. WARE, JR.
10. You love the deep, deep pause, that reigns
At _highest noon_, o'er hills and plains.
CARRINGTON.
11. When the stars do disappear,
With only one remaining,
The morning star alone;
Just like a maid complaining,
When all her hopes are gone.
WILLIAM CRAFTS.
12. When climbs above the eastern bar
The _horned moon_, with one bright star
Within the nether lip.
COLERIDGE.
13. When comes forth the _glorious day_,
Like a bridegroom richly dight,
And before his flashing ray
Flies the sullen, vanquish'd night.
S. G. BULFINCH.
14. When Apollo doth devise
new apparelling for western skies.
KEATS.
15. Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And like phantoms, grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful fire-light,
Dance upon the parlor wall.
LONGFELLOW.
16. When like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The _moon arises_ on the murky earth.
SHELLEY.
17. _Morning_ in your garden, when each leaf of crisped green
Hangs tremulous in diamonds, with em'rald rays between.
It is the birth of nature, baptized in early dew,
The plants look meekly up and smile as if their God they knew.
MRS. GILMAN.
18. Ah, let the gay the roseate morning hail,
When, in the various blooms of light array'd,
She bids fresh beauty live along the vale,
And rapture tremble in the vocal shade.
Sweet is the lucid morning's opening flower,
Her choral melodies benignly rise;
Yet dearer to your soul the _shadowy hour_
At which her blossoms close, her music dies.
MISS H. M. WILLIAMS.
19. The _middle watch_ of a summer's _night_,
When earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
Naught is seen in the vault on high,
But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,
And the flood, which rolls its milky hue,
A river of white on the welkin blue.
DRAKE.
20. When little birds begin discourse,
In quick, low voices, _ere the streaming light_
Pours on their nests from out the day's fresh source.
R. H. DANA.
21. _Morning_, when the sun pours his first light
Amid a forest, and with ray aslant,
Entering its depth, illumes the branchless pines,
Brightening their bark, tinging with redder hue
Its rusty stains, and casting on the earth
Long lines of shadow, where they rise erect
Like pillars of a temple.
SOUTHEY--_Madoc_.
22. _Sunrise_, slanting on a city, when
The early risen poor are coming in,
Duly and cheerfully to toil, and up
Rises the hammer's clink, with the far hum
Of moving wheels, and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city murmur swells.
N. P. WILLIS.
23. When the _west_
Opens her golden bowers of _rest_,
And a moist radiance from the skies
Shoots trembling down, as from the eyes
Of some meek penitent, whose last
Bright hours atone for dark ones past,
And whose sweet tears o'er wrong forgiven,
Shine, as they fall, with light from heaven.
MOORE--_Lalla Rookh_.
24. The _midnight_ hour, when
Slow through the studious gloom, thy pausing eye,
Led by the glimmering taper, moves around
The sacred volumes of the dead.
AKENSIDE--_Pleasures of the Imagination_.
25. When _evening's virgin Queen_
Sits on her fringed throne serene,
And mingling whispers, rising near,
Steal on the still reposing ear.
H. K. WHITE.
26. When the moon riseth as if dreaming,
Treading with still white feet the lulled sea.
_From the Etonian._
27. When day hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom button'd it with stars.
O. W. HOLMES.
28. _Morning_, with all her attributes; the slow
Impearling of the heavens, the sparkling white
On the webb'd grass, the fragrant mistiness,
The fresh airs, with the twinkling leaves at sport,
And all the gradual and emerging light,
The crystalline distinctness settling clear,
And all the wakening of strengthening sound.
MILMAN--_Lord of the Bright City_.
29. Her _twilight_ robe when nature wears,
And evening sheds her sweetest tears,
Which every thirsty plant receives,
While silence trembles on the leaves.
From every tree, and flower, and bush,
There seems to breathe a soothing hush,
While every transient sound but shows
How deep and still is the repose.
MRS. FOLLEN.
30. When as the _evening shades prevail_,
The moon takes up her wondrous tale,
And, nightly, to the listening earth
Proclaims the story of her birth.
While all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
ADDISON.
31. When thronging constellations rush in crowds,
Paving with fire the sky.
SHELLEY.
32. A _beautiful sunset_, when warm o'er the lake
Its splendor, at parting, a summer eve throws,
Like a bride full of blushes, when lingering to take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes.
MOORE--_Lalla Rookh_.
33. The _midnight_ hour,
The starlight wedding of the earth and heaven,
When music breathes in perfume from the flower,
And high revealings to the heart are given.
S. L. FAIRFIELD.
34. Weel may'st thou welcome the night's deathly reign,
Wi' souls of the dearest ye're mingling then;
The gowd light o' mornin' is lightless to thee,
But, oh! for the _night_ wi' its ghost revelrie.
WILLIAM THOM.
35. Come, stir the fire, and close the shutters fast;
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round;
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So will you welcome cheerful _evening_ in.
COWPER--_Task_.
36. When the _moon_
Bends her _new_ silver bow, as if to fling
Her arrowy lustre through some vapor's wing.
PARK BENJAMIN.
37. Be it the _summer noon_; a sandy space
The ebbing tide has left upon its place,
While the broad basin of the ocean keeps
An equal motion, swelling as it sleeps,
Then, slowly sinking, curling to the strand,
Faint, lazy waves o'er-creep the ridgy sand.
Ships in the calm seem anchor'd, for they glide
On the still sea, urged solely by the tide.
CRABBE.
38. Night; when the stars are gemming heaven,
And seem like angels' eyes,
Resuming still their silent watch
Within the far-off skies.
When tenderly they gaze on us,
Those children of the air,
While every ray they send to us
Some message seems to bear.
MISS LEWIS.
39. The _Sabbath morn_
So sweet;--all sounds save nature's voice are still;
Mute shepherd's song-pipe, mute the harvest horn,
A holier tongue is given to brook and rill;
Old men climb silently their cottage-hill,
There ruminate, and look sublime abroad,
Shake from their feet, as thought on thought comes still,
The dust of life's long, dark, and dreary road,
And rise from this gross earth, and give the day to God.
THOMAS MILLER.
40. When the fair young moon in a silver bow
Looks back from the bending west,
Like a weary soul that is glad to go
To the long-sought place of rest.
When her crescent lies in a beaming crown,
On the distant hill's dark head,
Serene as the righteous looking down
On the world from his dying-bed.
MISS H. F. GOULD.
41. When gleaming through the gorgeous fold
Of clouds, around his glory roll'd,
The _orb of gold_, half hid, half seen,
Swells his rays of tremulous sheen,
That, widely as the billows roll,
Glance quivering on their distant goal.
SOTHEBY--_Constance de Castile_.
42. When, like lobster boiled, the _morn_
From black to red begins to turn.
BUTLER--_Hudibras_.
43. When in mid air, on seraph wing,
The paly _moon_ is journeying
In stillest paths of stainless blue.
Keen, curious stars are peering through
Heaven's arch this hour; they dote on her
With perfect love, nor can she stir
Within her vaulted halls apace,
Ere, rushing out with joyous face,
These Godkins of the sky
Smile as she glides in loveliness,
While every heart beats high
With passion, and breaks forth to bless
Her loftier divinity.
MOTHERWELL.