Sail their mimic fleets,

Till the treacherous pool

Engulphs them in its whirling

And turbulent ocean.

In the country, on every side,

Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,

Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain

How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,

With their dilated nostrils spread,

They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapors that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

THE RAIN.

81

Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,

The farmer sees

His pastures and his fields of grain.

As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain,

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.

These, and far more than these,

The poet sees!

He can behold

Aquarius old

Walking the fenceless fields of air;

And from each ample fold

Of the clouds about him rolled,

Scattering everywhere

The showery rain,

As the farmer scatters his grain.

He can behold

Things manifold

That have not yet been wholly told,

Have not been wholly sung nor said.

For his thought that never stops,
Follows the water-drops

Down to the graves of the dead,

Down through chasms and gulfs profound,
To the dreary fountain-head

Of lakes and rivers under ground;

And sees them, when the rain is done,

On the bridge of colors seven

Climbing up once more to heaven

Opposite the setting sun.

Thus the Seer,

With vision clear,

Sees forms appear and disappear,

In the perpetual round of strange,

Mysterious change,

From birth to death, from death to birth,

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,

Till glimpses more sublime

Of things, unseen before,

Unto his wondering eyes reveal

The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel

Turning for evermore

In the rapid and rushing river of Time.

LONGFELLOW.

A SUMMER LANDSCAPE.

83

(A SUMMER LANDSCAPE.)

Now roves the eye;

And posted on this speculative height,

Exults in its command. (The sheepfold here
Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.
At first, progressive as a stream, they seek
The middle field; but, scattered by degrees,
Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.)
There (from the sun-burnt hay-field homeward creeps
The loaded wain ; while, lightened of its charge,
The wain that meets it passes swiftly by;

The boorish driver leaning o'er his team
Vociferous, and impatient of delay.

Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,
Diversified with trees of every growth,

Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine,
Within the twilight of their distant shades;

There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood
Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs.
(No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar ;) paler some,
And of a wannish gray; the willow such,

And poplar, that with silver lines its leaf,)
And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm ;)
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
(Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.)
Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun,
The maple, and the beech of oily nuts
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
Diffusing odors: nor unnoted pass

The sycamore, capricious in attire,

Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet

Have changed the woods, in scarlet honors bright.

✓

A JUNE DAY.

COWPER.

WHO has not dreamed a world of bliss,
On a bright, sunny noon like this,
Couched by his native brook's green maze,

With comrade of his boyish days?

While all around them seemed to be

Just as in joyous infancy.

Who has not loved, at such an hour,

Upon that heath, in birchen bower,
Lulled in the poet's dreamy mood,
Its wild and sunny solitude?