TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
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 if 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.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

HELPS TO STUDY

The gentian blooms in autumn, and is one of the rarest and most beautiful of wild flowers. What part of this poem do you like best?

And commotion;

And down the wet streets
Sail their mimic fleets,
Till the treacherous pool

Engulfs 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.

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.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

HELPS TO STUDY

As you read this, note how the poet suggests the freshness and the dashing sound of the rain. The short lines help in this effect.

1. What words and phrases are often repeated? 2. Which lines seem to dash and spurt, like the rain? 3. Go through the poem, stanza by stanza, and tell what different scenes are presented.

5

THE SNOW-STORM

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The steed and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come, see the north wind's masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore

5

10

15

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Mauger the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's nightwork,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

HELPS TO STUDY

1. What shows that this snowfall is a storm "? 2. What contrast is presented in the first stanza? Explain the last line of this stanza. 3. Show how, in the second stanza, the snow is described as a builder. What does it build?

For Study with the Glossary: Tumultuous, quarry, artificer, bastions, myriad, Parian, mauger, frolic architecture.

For Oral and Written Composition: 1. A snow scene. 2. Life indoors on a winter day.