IS merry in greenwood, thus runs the old lay,-
In the gladsome month of lively May,
When the wild bird's song on stem and spray
Invites to forest bower;

Then rears the ash his airy crest,

Then shines the birch in silver vest,

And the beech in glistening leaves is dressed,

And dark between shows the oak's proud breast,

Like a chieftain's frowning tower.

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THE GREENWOOD.

Though a thousand branches join their screen,
Yet the broken sunbeams glance between,
And tip the leaves with lighter green,

With brighter tints the flower:

Dull is the heart that loves not then

The deep recess of the wildwood glen,

Where roe and red-deer find sheltering den
When the sun is in his power.

Less merry, perchance, is the fading leaf,
That follows so soon on the gathered sheaf,
When the greenwood loses the name ;

Silent is then the forest bound,

Save the redbreast's note, and the rustling sound
Of frost-nipped leaves that are dropping round,
Or the deep-mouthed cry of the distant hound.
That opens on his game:

Yet then, too, I love the forest wide,
Whether the sun in splendour ride
And gild its many-coloured side;
Or whether the soft and silvery haze,
In vapoury folds, o'er the landscape strays,
And half involves the woodland maze,

Like an early widow's veil,

Where wimpling tissue from the gaze
The form half hides, and half betrays,

Of beauty wan and pale.

SCOTT.

HOLIDAY.

A WOOD SCENE.

HEY came upon a greenwood rich in trees,

O'er which went sighing the eve-wandering breeze,
Bending the tops of some with his sweet kiss,

Yet tender as the new-linked lover is.

Here shot up the white ash, and there the larch,

And there the wild witch-elm did overarch
The gladed silence with his showering boughs,
Round which the subtle ivy creeps and blows
Until it blasts the tree to youthful death;

And woodbines cast abroad their odorous breath,
Between whose leaves the clear blue landscape broke;
And there all grandly grew the broad-armed oak,
Like a centurion, 'midst his branchéd peers,

The eldest Sylvan of a thousand years!

ANON.

HOLIDAY.

H blessed! when some holiday
Brings townsmen to the moor,
And in the sunbeams brighten up
The sad looks of the poor.

The bee puts on his richest gold,
As if that worker knew

How hardly (and for little) they

Their sunless task pursue.

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