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are. None are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming green, the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the Rock Spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass,—the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, arborescent, burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of grace? They will not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love token; but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child his pillow.

The

And, as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain, from plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen take up their watch by the headstone. woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave.

Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured of the earth-children. Unfading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark eternal tapestries of the hills; to them, slow-pencilled, iriseyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow, the drooping of its cowslip-gold,-far above, among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like, on the stone; and the gathering orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunset of a thousand years.

Mysteries of the Clouds.

THAT mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley, level and white, through which the tops of the trees rise as if through an inundation-why is it so heavy? and why does it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it will melt away utterly into the splendour of morning, when the sun has shone on it but a few moments more? Those colossal pyramids, huge and firm,

with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks-why are they so light,-their bases high over our heads, high over the heads of Alps? why will these melt away, not as the sun rises, but as he descends, and leave the stars of twilight clear, while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth like a shroud?

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Has it

Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by yonder clump of pines: nay, which does not steal by them, but haunts them, wreathing yet round them, and yet-and yet slowly now falling in a fair waved line, like a woman's veil; now fading, now gone: we look away for an instant, and look back, and it is again there. What has it to do with that clump of pines, that it broods by them and weaves itself among their branches, to and fro ? hidden a cloudy treasure among the moss at their roots, which it watches thus ? Or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning, or bound it fast within those bars of bough? And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hill,-that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,-how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow-nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it-poised as a white bird bovers over its nest?

Or those war-clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire;-now is their barbed strength bridled? what bits are these they are champing with their vaporous lips, flinging off flakes of black foam ? Leagued leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. The sword of him that layeth at them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. Where ride the captains of their armies ? Where are set the measures of their march? Fierce murmurers, answering each other from morning until evening-what rebuke is this which has awed them into peace? what hand has reined them back by the way by which they came?

I know not if the reader will think at first that questions like these are easily answered. So far from it, I rather believe that some of the mysteries of the clouds never will be understood by us at all. "Knowest thou the balancing of the clouds?" Is the answer ever to be one of pride? "The wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge?" Is our knowledge ever to be so?

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From the "Faerie Queen.”—The Seasons.

So forth issew'd the Seasons of the yeare:
First, lusty Spring all dight * in leaves of flowres
That freshly budded and new bloosmes did beare,
In which a thousand birds had built their bowres,
That sweetly sung to call forth paramours;
And in his hand a javelin he did beare,
And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures †)
A gilt engraven morion ‡ he did weare;

That as some did him love, so others did him feare.

Then came the jolly Summer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock coloured greene,
That was unlyned all, to be more light:
And on his head a girlond well beseene
He wore, from which, as he had chauffed § been,
The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore
A bowe and shaftes, as he in forrest greene
Had hunted like the libbard or the bore,

And now would bathe his limbes with labor heated sore.

Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad,

As though he joyed in his plentious store,

Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banisht hunger, which to-fore

Had by the belly oft him pinchèd sore:

* Adorned.
§ Heated.

+ Encounters.

Helmet.

|| Leopard.

Upon his head a wreath, that was enrold
With ears of corne of every sort, he bore;

And in his hand a sickle he did holde,

To reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.*
Lastly came Winter, cloathed all in frize,

Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill;
Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freese,
And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill†
As from a limbeck ‡ did adown distill:
In his right hand a tipped staffe he held,
With which his feeble steps he stayed still;
For he was faiut with cold, and weak with eld; §
That scarse his loosed limbes he hable was to weld. ||

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A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

MICHAEL DRAYTON:

1563-1631.

Summer's Eve.

CLEAR had the day been from the dawn, All chequered was the sky,

Thin clouds, like scarfs of cobweb lawn, Veiled heaven's most glorious eye.

The wind had no more strength than this,
That leisurely it blew,

To make one leaf the next to kiss,
That closely by it grew.

The rills that on the pebbles played
Might now be heard at will;
This world they only music made,
Else everything was still.

The flowers, like brave embroidered girls,
Looked as they much desired
To see whose head with orient pearls
Most curiously was tyred.*

And to itself the subtle air

Such sovereignty assumes,

That it received too large a share
From nature's rich perfumes.

* Dressed.

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