Thou comest not when violets lean

O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple drest,

Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone
When woods are bare, and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged Year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue, blue as though that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to Heaven, as I depart.

TRAILING ARBUTUS.

ROSE TERRY.

DARLINGS of the forest,

Blossoming alone,

When Earth's grief is sorest

For her jewels gone

Ere the last snowdrift melts, your tender buds have blown.

Tinged with color faintly,

Like the morning sky,

Or, more pale and saintly

Wrapped in leaves ye lie

Even as children sleep in faith's simplicity.

There the wild wood-robin

Hymns your solitude;

And the rain comes sobbing

Through the budding wood,

While the low south-wind sighs, but dares not be more rude.

Were your pure lips fashioned

Out of rain and dew

Starlight unimpassioned,

Dawn's most tender hue,

And scented by the woods that gathered sweets for you?

Fairest and most lonely,

From the world apart;

Made for beauty only,

Veiled from Nature's heart

With such unconscious grace as makes the dream of Art!

Were not mortal sorrow

An immortal shade,

Then would I to-morrow

Such a flower be made,

And live in the dear woods where my lost childhood

played.

SUMMER MOON.

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

SUMMER moon, O summer moon! across the west you fly,

You gaze on half the earth at once with sweet and steadfast eye:

Summer moon, O summer moon! were I aloft with thee, I know that I could look upon my boy who sails the sea.

Summer moon, 0 summer moon! you throw your silver showers

Upon a glassy sea that lies round shores of fruit and flowers;

The blue tide trembles on the shore, with murmuring as of bees,

And the shadow of the ship lies dark near shade of orange trees.

Summer moon, O summer moon! now wind and storm have fled

Your light creeps through a cabin-pane and lights a flaxen head;

He tosses with his lips apart, lies smiling in your gleam, For underneath his folded lids you put a gentle dream.

Summer moon, O summer moon! his head is on his

arm,

He stirs, with balmy breath, and sees the moonlight on the farm,

He stirs and breathes his mother's name, he smiles and

sees once more

The moon above, the fields below, the shadow at the door.

Summer moon, 0 summer moon! across the lift you go! Far south you gaze and see my boy, where groves of orange grow.

Summer moon, O summer moon! you turn again to me, And seem to have the smile of him who sleeps upon the

sea.

FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER.

ANONYMOUS.

FORTUNE will not come with seeking:
I have sought it, and I know :
I have looked for four-leaved clover
All the hill-side on and over;
By the brook, and in the meadow,
In the sunshine, in the shadow,
But my clover does not grow.

Fortune will not come with seeking;
Here beside my open door

I will rest, my search is over;
I can find no four-leaved clover:
On, through the deceitful meadow,
In the sunshine, in the shadow,

I shall never seek it more!

"Fortune will not come with seeking,"
So I muse with down-cast eyes;
Eyes that gaze the hill-tops over,
Fall, and rest on four-leaved clover,
Close beside my doorstep growing,
Close at home my fortune showing;
In my home I win my prize!

THE SEA.

BARRY CORNWALL.

THE sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go:

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh, how I love, to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,