Who never defers and never demands,
But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,-

Seeing it good as when God first saw
And gave it the weight of his will for law.

And O the joy that is never won,

But follows and follows the journeying sun,

By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream,
A will-o'-the-wind, a light-o'-dream,

Delusion afar, delight anear,

From morrow to morrow, from year to year,

A jack-o'-lantern, a fairy fire,

A dare, a bliss, and a desire!

The racy smell of the forest loam,

When the stealthy, sad-heart leaves go home;

(O leaves, O leaves, I am one with you, Of the mould and the sun and the wind and the dew!)

The broad gold wake of the afternoon;
The silent fleck of the cold new moon;

The sound of the hollow sea's release
From stormy tumult to starry peace;

With only another league to wend;

And two brown arms at the journey's end!

These are the joys of the open road-
For him who travels without a load.

Bliss Carman

O1

AMONG THE ROCKS

H, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,

This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet

For the ripple to run over in its mirth;

Listening the while, where on the heap of

stones

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.

If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you: Make the low nature better by your throes! Give earth yourself, go up for gain above! Robert Browning

S

TO AUTUMN

EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatcheaves run.

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fumes of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined
flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by
hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying

day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly

bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. John Keats

A

AN AUTUMN DAY

SOUL is in the sunlight. Not one breath Troubles the stainless and translucent sky. Methinks the spirits of the mountain fly Heavenward like flames. Blue air encompasseth

The congregated Alps that lift on high

Their crowned brows, to hear what Summer saith.

She, having whispered, will depart; and death Comes in the clasp of Winter by and by.

Hushed are the pines. There is no stir, no strife,

No fretful wailing of frore winds that blow Earth's winding-sheet of cold uncolored snow. This morn, upon the brink of dying, Life Draws a deep draft of peace, and rapture thrills Thro' all the pulses of the impassioned hills. John Addington Symonds

ODE TO THE SPIRIT OF EARTH IN AUTUMN

F

AIR Mother Earth lay on her back last night,

To gaze her fill on Autumn's sunset skies, When at a waving of the fallen light,

Sprang realms of rosy fruitage o'er her eyes.
A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West,
Wherein the bloom of Eden bloomed again:
Red were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed,
Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain,
But dumb, because that overmastering spell
Of rapture held them dumb: then, here and there,
A golden harp lost strings; a crimson shell
Burnt gray; and sheaves of lustre fell to air.
The illimitable eagerness of hue

Bronzed, and the beamy winged bloom that flew 'Mid those bunched fruits and thronging figures

failed.

A green-edged lake of saffron touched the blue, With isles of fireless purple lying through: And Fancy on that lake to seek lost treasures sailed.

Not long the silence followed:
The voice that issues from thy breast,

O glorious South-west,

Along the gloom-horizon halloa'd; Warning the valleys with a mellow roar Through flapping wings; then sharp the woodland bore

A shudder and a noise of hands:

A thousand horns from some far vale
In ambush sounding on the gale.

Forth from the cloven sky came bands
Of revel-gathering spirits; trooping down,
Some rode the tree-tops; some on torn cloud-

strips

Burst screaming through the lighted town: And scudding sea-ward, some fell on big ships: Or mounting the sea-horses blew

Bright foam-flakes on the black review
Of heaving hulls and burying beaks.

Still on the farthest line, with outpuffed cheeks,
'Twixt dark and utter dark, the great wind drew
From heaven that disenchanted harmony
To join earth's laughter in the midnight blind:
Booming a distant chorus to the shrieks
Preluding him: then he,

His mantle streaming thunderingly behind,
Across the yellow realm of stiffened Day,