A XXVII. Minter. N interesting passage from Hesiod is given below. The extract is taken from the "Works and Days," a poem giving instructions regarding agriculture, trade, and labor, blended with precepts of a moral character; and, in addition to the extremely remote date of its origin, the passage is also remarkable as one of the few instances in which a poet of the old heathen world has entered into detail of description on natural subjects. Its authenticity is, I believe, admitted. "The picturesque description given by Hesiod of Winter bears all the evidences of great antiquity," says a learned German critic WINTER. FROM HESIOD. Beware the January month, beware Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air, From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth And moves it with his breath; the ocean floods Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of woods. And strews with thick-branched pines the mountain dells The depth of forests rolls the roar of sound. The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold, And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold; Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin, Translation of SIR C. A. ELTON. A WINTER SCENE. FROM THE SEASONS." The keener tempests rise; and fuming dun, A vapory deluge lies, to snow congeal'd. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the bush'd air the whitening shower descends, At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Put on their winter robe of purest white. 'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low, the woods The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is : HOLLY SONG. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho sing heigh ho! unto the green holly; This life is most jolly! Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot; Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh ho sing heigh ho! unto the green holly; Then, heigh ho! the holly! SHAKSPEARE. AN OLD-FASHIONED HOLLY HEDGE. Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impassable hedge of about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five feet in diameter, which I can show in my gardens at Say's Court, at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves, the taller standards at orderly distances blushing with their natural coral-shorn and fashioned into columns and pilasters, architecturally shaped, at due distance? EVELYN'S "Silva." CHRISTMAS CAROL. HOLLY AND IVY, I. Holly and Ivy made a great party, In lands where they go. Then spake Holly, "I am fierce and jolly, I will have the mastery In lands where we go!" Then spake Ivy, "I am loud and proud, In lands where we go!" Then spake Holly, and bent down on his knee, II. Nay, Ivy, nay, it shall not be, I wis, Let Holly have the mastery, as the manner is. Holly standeth in the hall fair to behold; Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a cold. Nay, Ivy, nay, etc., etc. Holly and his merry men, they dance now and they sing; Nay, Ivy, nay, etc., etc. Ivy hath a lyke,* she caught it with the cold, Holly he hath berries as red as any rose, The foresters, the hunters, keep them for the does. Nay, Ivy, nay, etc., etc. Ivy she hath berries as black as any sloe, There come the owls and eat them as they goe. Nay, Ivy, nay, etc., etc. Holly he hath birds, a full, fair flock, The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock. Good Ivy say to us what bird hath thou; Dating in the 14th century. THE SEASONS. A blue-eyed child that sits amid the noon, All beauty that is throned in womanhood, * Unexplained in any glossary. |