Like an actual colour bright LEIGH HUNT. VI. FIELD FLOWERS. "SHAKSPEARE, Homer, Dante, and Chaucer, saw the splendour of meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: and these things bore a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute commentary on human life."-Emerson's "Representative Men." YE field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight, I love you for lulling me back into dreams THE VOICE OF SPRING. Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune Than ye speak to my heart, little wildings of June; Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find, Even now what affections the violet awakes! What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks, Earth's cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear, Had scathed my existence's bloom; Once I welcome you more, in life's passionless stage; 231 CAMPBELL.. VII. THE VOICE OF SPRING. "THE change of seasons well deserves our admiration. It cannot be attributed to chance, for in fortuitous events there can be neither order nor stability. Now in all countries of the earth, the seasons succeed each other with the same regularity as the nights do the days, and change the appearance of the earth precisely at the appointed times. We see it successively adorned, sometimes with herbs and leaves, sometimes with flowers, and sometimes with fruits. Afterwards, it is deprived of its ornaments, and appears in a state of death till spring comes, and gives it, so to speak, a resurrection. Spring, summer, and autumn, nourish men and animals, by an abundant provision of fruits; and although nature appears dead in winter, yet that season is not without its blessings, for it moistens and fertilizes the earth; and by that preparation the ground becomes capable of producing plants and fruits in due season."- -Sturm. I COME, I come! ye have called me long I come o'er the mountains with light and song; I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowers, I have passed o'er the hill of the stormy North, And the rein-deer bounds through the pasture free, And the moss looks bright where my step has been. I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh, From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain; Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come! Away from the dwellings of care-worn men, MRS. HEMANS TO THE CUCKOO. 233 VIII. TO THE CUCKOO. "THE Cuckoo arrives in our island early in spring; in White's 'Naturalist's Calendar,' it is noted as being first heard April the 7th; and in Markwick's,' April the 15th, and last heard June 28th. By the first of July it has generally taken its departure for Northern Africa. In Ireland, according to Mr. Thompson, the cuckoo is usually heard from the 16th to the 20th of April, and departs at the end of June, but he adds that, in the year 1838, the stay of the cuckoo was remarkably prolonged, and the period of its arrival later than ordinary, and that one was heard at the Falls, near Belfast, on the 7th of July. The young birds of the year generally remain till towards the end of August, so late as the 27th of which month they have been observed in Antrim.' The Bishop of Norwich, in his Familiar History of Birds,' records an instance of about forty cuckoos being congregated in a garden, in the county of Down, from the 18th to the 22nd of July, and with the exception of two, which were smaller than the rest, taking their departure at that time."-Museum of Animated Nature. HAIL beauteous stranger of the grove! Thou messenger of spring! Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,1 What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, And hear the sound of music sweet From birds among the bowers. The school-boy, wandering through the wood To pluck the primrose gay, Starts, thy curious voice to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom," Thou fliest the vocal vale," An annual guest, in other lands Another spring to hail. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, O! could I fly, I'd fly with thee; 1. What is the meaning of this line? 2. What time is this? LOGAN. 3. In what case is vale, and how governed? IX. THE CHARMS OF NATURE. "In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth."-Milton. O HOW canst thou renounce the boundless store All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven? BEATTIE. X. SOLITUDE. "CATO used to say, that he was never less alone than when alone, nor less at leisure than when at leisure."- Cicero. "It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech- Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god;' for it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversion towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that |