Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/590

NATURE AND LOVE.

SPRING.

The tender spring comes tremblingly;
Quiv'ring, the blossoms softly break;
Each zephyr breathing gently by,
New forms, new beauties seem to wake.
So trembling wakes my love for thee,
So fetters burst, springs fair and free.
O first sweet love! O maiden mine!
O strange new love! O birth divine!

SUMMER.

Full summer now — the genial hours
Lend radiant noon to glowing night.
Full summer — see the gleaming flowers
Basking in fervid life and light.
And love too has its perfect noon,
Its summer sun, its summer moon;
In thy deep radiant eyes, my queen,
My triumph lies — there love is seen.

AUTUMN.

Adown the fields the golden grain
Hangs heavy on the burdened stems,
Through shimmering leaves the fruits again
Gleam ruddy ripe, rich autumn's gems.
Hearts' harvest too I gather in.
Love, sweet to cherish, sweet to win;
For future days o'erflowing store.
Love, could I ever love thee more!

WINTER.

Where are the flowers? where the leaves?
Where the sweet zephyrs' gentle breath?
Where mellowed fruits and jolden sheaves?
Dead, dead; all icy bound in death!
Is love too dead? Hence, leedless pain!
Love only sleeps to wake again.
Love dead? Ah no, not so with love!
Love only dies to live above.

Ennis Graham

Tinsley's Magazine

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THE EVERLASTING PITY.

As lies the blue behind the thunder-cloud,
As lurk the snowdrop 'neath the drifted snow.
As the bright buds till April calls aloud
Hide deep within the black and leafless bough.
So, despite care and sorrow, loss and fret,
God's loving pity guards His children's fates;
Oh, in our darkness let us trust Him yet.
Whose Comforter eaa patient soul awaits.

Believe the rankling wound in love is sent,
Believe the grief in chastening mercy comes,
And so the bitter "why" to faith will melt.
And sorrow smile anong her darlings' tombs.
Watching the violets gem the grassy lane
That late in desolate winter chill we trod,
Let the sweet flowers preach to the lonely pain
The everlasting pity of our God.

Tinsley's Magazine

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AUGUST ON THE MOUNTAINS.

There is sultry gloom on the mountain's brow,
And a sultry glow beneath;
Oh, for a breeze from the western sea,
Soft and reviving, sweet and free,
Over the shadowless hill and lea,
Over the barren heath.

There are clouds and darkness around God's ways,
And the noon of life grows hot;
And though His faithfulness standeth fast
As the mighty mountains, a shroud is cast
Over the glory, solemn and vast,
Veiling, but changing it not.

Send a sweet breeze from Thy sea, O Lord,
From thy deep, deep sea of love;
Though it lift not the veil from the cloudy height.
Let the brow grow cool and the footstep light.
As it comes with holy and soothing might,
Like the wing of a snowy dove.

Frances Ridley Havergal

Sunday Magazine

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DYING SUMMER.

On tawny hills in faded splendour drest.
Of rusty purple and of tarnished gold.
Now like some Eastern monarch sad and old,
The discrowned summer lieth down to rest!
A mournful mist hangs o'er the mellow plain.
O'er watery meads that slide down pine-clad heights.
And wine-red woods where song no more delights;
But only wounded birds cry out in pain.
A pallid glory lingers in the sky.
Faint scents of wilding flowers float in the air.
All nature's voices murmur in despair —
"Was summer crowned so late — so soon to die?"
But with a royal smile, she whispers, "Cease,
If life is joy and triumph, death is peace!"

M. Betham-Edwards.

Sunday Magazine