LONDON:
HENRY J. DRANE & CO.
Paternoster RowE.C. New York: E.P. Dutton& Co. 
I. Whatdreams the flower cups enfold
Withintheir fragrant leaves,
Ofmeadow-ways grown fair with spring,
Softmists that April weaves;
Andcottage gardens where the scent
Offlowers is with the wood-smoke blent. Theceaseless ripple of the brook,
Babblingagainst the broken arch,
Thelittle firwood's tasselled spires,
Thecloud of verdure on the larch;
Thegold-green glimmer of the woods,
Wheretender twilight always broods. C.Brooke. II. There is dew for the flow'ret,
And honey for the bee,
And bowers for the wild bird,
And love for you and me. There are tears for the many,
And pleasures for the few,
But let the world pass on, dear,
There's love for me and you. Hood.
III. THE ROSE IN OCTOBER. O late and sweet, too sweet, toolate!
What nightingalewill sing to thee?
The empty nest,the shivering tree,
The dead leaves by the gardengate,
And cawing crows for thee willwait,
O sweet and late! Where wert thou when the soft Junenights
Were faint withperfume, glad with song?
Where wert thouwhen the days were long
And steeped in Summer's youngdelights?
What hopest thou now but checks andslights,
Brief days, lone nights? Stay, there's a gleam of Winterwheat
Far on the hill;down in the woods
A very heaven ofstillness broods;
And through the mellow sun's wornheat,
Lo! tender pulses round theebeat,
O late and sweet! IV. There's beauty all around our paths, if but our
watchful eyes
Can trace it midst familiar things and through
their lowly guise;
We may find it when a hedgerow showers its
blossoms o'er ourway,
Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last
red light of day.
F. Hemans.
V.
ALF covered with last year's leaves,
She peeped from her russet bed; The great bare branches of thetrees
Were tossed and swayedoverhead; The hedge looked barren and prickly,
Without the sign of a leaf;
Over the flower there bowed a heart
Grown cold with the snows of grief. The violet's fragile petals
Enfolded a heart of gold,
And a deeper wealth of perfume,
Than the tiny cup could hold;
So the great wind roaring above
Sent a tiny zephyr down,
To drift aside the sheltering bloom,
And bereave her of her crown.
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It stole the familiar scent,
To give to the burdened heart
With only a cold north wind
In the world to take its part;
The flower died in the bleak March air,
And the heart went on its way;
The violet's life was blooming there,
And melting the snows away.
Caris Brooke.
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| Yet nature holds a gracious hand,
Her ancient ways pursuing;
And spreads the charms we loved of old,
To aid the heart's renewing. Here her long crests of fringèd crag
Allure the skyward swallows;
Here the still dove's low love-note floats
Above her leafy hollows. |
Here itscalm strength her hillside rears,
From heaving slopes of clover;
Here stillthe pewit pipes and flits
Within his furzy cover. Here humsthe wild-bee in the thyme,
Here glows the royal heather;
And youthcomes back upon the breeze,
And youth's unclouded weather. F.T. Palgrave. 
VII. AN APPEAL.
Dear, do not die!
Of cypresses and grassy graves sing I--
I hang with wreaths of song death's grief-grown cross,
And weep, to music, for Life's infinite loss,
And make the sweetest verse of bitterest woe,
--I know the way because I love you so;
But I have written griefs that I have known
In other's heart's blood, never in my own.
If you died what more could be sung or said?
I could not sing of Death if you were dead. Dear, do not love!
Do not love me, keep still aloof, above!
While you and Love in far-off glory stand
Clear sounds the voice, and harp responds to hand.
But if you loved me--if you came quite near
And set Love 'mid life's common things and dear--
Mute would the voice be, Love would be too fair
To waste upon the wide world's empty air,
And, songless, I should droop and vainly pine--
I could not sing of Love if you weremine! E. Nesbit. 
VIII.I know the way she went
Home with her maiden
posy,
For her feet have touch'd
the meadows
And left the daisies
rosy. Tennyson.
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IX.
golden radiance shines,
And day declines;
Red in the dying sun,
Day's course is run;
And weary labourers have home-
ward gone,
Their day's work done. The cornfield now is still,
To-morrow will
Bring back the men who reap:
But now asleep
The woods and fields and
meadowsseem to lie--
Restful as I.
E. Nesbit. |
| X. As a twig trembles which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;
I only know she came and went. |
Asclasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome's measureless content,
So mysoul held that moment's heaven;--
I only know she came and went. As atone bound, our swift Spring heaps
The orchard full of bloom and scent,
Soclove her May my wintry sleeps;--
I only know she came and went. Anangel stood and met my gaze
Through the low doorway of my tent;
Thetent is struck, the vision stays;--
I only know she came and went. 
Oh, when the room grows
slowly dim,
And life's last oil is
nearly spent,
One gush of light these
eyes will brim,
Only to think she came
and went.
J.R. Lowell.
XI. EVENING SONG. Waking, I dream of thy life that shall be
Never by sorrow made weary;
Earth shall be soft with love for thee,
Down-lined the nest of mydearie.
Millions of flowers to gladden thy way,
Springing from seeds that my heart sets to-day.
Sleep, darling baby, baby! Sleeping, dream thou of the Spirit of Spring--
Of sweets and of scents she isbringing;
Just for the flowers' sake thrushes will sing,
Flowers blow for love of thesinging.
In the world's harmony take thou thy part,
So shall the springtide bloom in thy heart!
Sleep, darling baby, baby!
E. Nesbit.
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XII.ow comes the first chill whisper of the
end | While yet the woods aregreen and skies are
blue;
While under loads of corn greatwaggons bend,
And sunshine makesus glad the whole day through.
The trees are full of leaf and ofdelight,
Yet through themsighs the forecast of the time
When the lean branches shall bewondrous, white
With winter'slovely radiant frost and rime. The fallen leaves as yet are hardlymissed,
The rest willfade--until the woods are bare,
And the dim glades where summerlovers kissed,
Forget how leafyand divine they were.
And in our souls come whispers ofdespair,
| "Failureagain--failure for evermore!
Leaves only for one summer's spaceare fair,
No flower can liveto see the fruit it bore." Yet every spring millions of flowershave birth,
And every autumnbrings its fruits and sheaves;
But when the fruit and grain makeglad the earth,
Dead are theflowers, and falling are the leaves.
Though all our lives we see our deardreams die,--
Each noble dreambrings fruit. It may not be
The fruit we hoped it would befollowed by,
But the fruitlasts to all eternity. |
No seed is lost--in earth's brown bosom cast;
No deed is lost--of all the deeds wedo;
Each grows to fruit--is harvested at last,
Haply in shape undreamed of, fair, andnew.
And, though we die before the end be won, | Ourdeeds live on; and other men
will cry,
Seeing the end of what | 
we havebegun,
"Still lives the fruit
for which the flowers
had to die!"
E. Nesbit. | 
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| XIII. Birds, joyous birds, of the wander-
ing wing!
Whence is it ye come with the
flowers of Spring?
"We come from the shores of the
green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of
Sharon smile,
And each worn wing hath regained
its home
Under peasants' roof-trees or
monarch's dome." |
And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea's foam?
"We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o'ershadowing the banquet's hall,
And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt,--
Naught looks the same, save the nest we built." 
| O joyous birds! it hath still
been so;
Through the halls of kings
doth the tempestgo!
But the huts of the hamlet
lie still anddeep,
And the hills o'er their
quiet a vigilkeep:
Say, what have ye found in
the peasant'scot,
Since last ye parted from
that sweetspot?-- |
"A change we have found there--and many a change!
Faces and footsteps, and all things strange!
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,
And the young that were, have a brow of care.
And the place is hushed where the children played--
Naught looks the same, save the nest we made."
F.Hemans. 
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