Which low to earth its drooping head declines,
All smear'd and sullied by a vernal shower.

O the hard bosoms of despotic Power!

All, all but she, the author of his shame,

All, all but she, regret this mournful hour;

Yet hence the youth, and hence the flower, shall claim, If so I deem aright, transcending worth and fame.

WILLIAM SHIENSTONE, 1714-1763.

THE HAMLET.

AN ODE.

The hinds how blest, who ne'er beguiled
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild,
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main,
For splendid care and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight-tinctured beam
Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam,
They rove abroad in ether blue,

To dip the scythe in fragrant dew;
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That nodding shades a craggy dell.

Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue;

In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds;
And startle from her ashen spray,
Across the glen, the screaming jay:
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequester'd store.

For them the moon with cloudless ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:

Their weary spirits to relieve,

The meadows incense breathe at eve.

No riot mars the simple fare,

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share :

But when the curfew's measured roar

Duly, the darkening valleys o'er,

Has echoed from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primrosed coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;

Or hasten from the sultry hill,

To loiter at the shady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honey'd flowers
The curling woodbine's shade embowers;
From the small garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound:
Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime.
But when their temples long have wore

The silver crown of tresses hoar,
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flowery turf they sleep.

T. WARTON, 1728-1790.

THE NOSEGAY.

FROM JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST."

With us the nosegay yet retains its station as a decoration to our Sunday beaux; but at our spring clubs and associations it becomes an essential, indispensable appointment, a little of the spirit of rivalry seeming to animate our youths in the choice and magnitude of this adornment. The superb spike of a Brompton, or ten-weeks'-stock long cherished in some sheltered corner for the occasion, surrounded by all the gayety the garden can afford, till it presents a very bush of flowers, forms the appendage of their bosoms, and, with the gay knots in their hats, their best garments, and the sprightly hilarity of their looks, constitutes a pleasing village scene, and gives an hour of unencumbered felicity to common man and rural life, not yet disturbed by refinement and taste.

J. L. KNAPP.

THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE.

A well there is in the west country,

And a clearer one never was seen;
There's not a wife in the west country
But has heard of the well of St. Keyne.

An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
Droops to the water below.

A traveler came to the well of St. Keyne-
Joyfully he drew nigh;

For from cock-crow he had been traveling,
And there was not a cloud in the sky.

He drank of the water so cool and clear,

For thirsty and hot was he;

And he sat down upon the bank,

Under the willow-tree.

There came a man from the house hard by,

At the well to fill his pail;

On the well-side he rested it,

And he bade the stranger hail.

Now art thou a bachelor, stranger?" quoth he!
"For an if thou hast a wife,

The happiest draught thou hast drank this day
That ever thou didst in thy life.

"Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast,

Ever here in Cornwall been?

For an if she have, I'll venture my life,

She has drank of the well of St. Keyne."

"I have left a good woman who never was here,"

The stranger he made reply;

"But that my draught should be the better for that,

I pray you answer me why."

"St. Keyne," quoth the Cornishman, "many a time

Drank of this crystal well;

And before the angel summoned her,

She laid on the water a spell.

"If the husband, of this gifted well,
Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man henceforth is he,

For he shall be master for life.

"But if the wife should drink of it first

God help the husband then!"

The stranger stoop'd to the well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.

"You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes ?"

He to the Cornishman said;

But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head :

'I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,

And left my wife in the porch ;

But i' faith she had been wiser than me,

For she took a bottle to church!"

Westbury, 1798.

ROBERT SOUTHEY

LOSEL'S FARM.

FROM THE SAD SHEPHERD,"

An hundred udders for the pail I have

That give me milk and curds that make me cheese
To cloy the markets! Twenty swarm of bees,
Which all the summer hum about the hive
And bring me wax and honey in bilive.

An aged oak, the king of all the field,

With a broad beech, there grows before my door,
That mickle mast unto the farm doth yield.
A chestnut which hath larded mony a swine,
Whose skins I wear to fend me from the cold;
A poplar grey, and with a kerved seat,

Under whose shade I solace in the heat;

And thence can see gang out and in my neat.

Twa trilland brooks, each from his spring doth meet,

And make a river to refresh my feet;

In which each morning, ere the sun doth rise,

I look myself, and clear my pleasant eyes,
Before I pipe; for therein have I skill
'Bove other swineherds. Bid me, and I will
Straight play to you, and make you melody.

BEN JONSON, 1574-1687

GIPSIES.

We have few gipsies in our neighborhood. In spite of our tempting green lanes, our woody dells, and heathy commons, the rogues don't take to us. I am afraid we are too civilized-too cautious; our sheepfolds are too closely watched; our barn-yards are too well guarded; our geese and ducks too fastly penned; our chickens too securely locked up; our little pigs too safe in their sty; our game too scarce; our laundresses too careful. In short, we are too little primitive; we have a snug brood of vagabonds and poachers of our own, to say nothing of their regular followers, constables and justices of the peace. We have stocks in the village, and a tread-mill in the next town, and therefore we go gipsy-less-a misfortune of which every landscape painter and every lover of that living landscape, the country, can appreciate the extent. There is nothing under the sun that harmonizes so well with nature, especially in her woodland recesses, as that picturesque people, who are, so to say, the wild genus-the pheasants and roebucks of the

human race.

Sometimes, indeed, we used to see a gipsy procession passing along the common, like an Eastern caravan, men, women, children, donkeys, and dogs; and sometimes a patch of bare earth, strewed with ashes and surrounded by scathed turf, on the broad green margin of some cross-road, would give token of a gipsy hall; but a regular gipsy encampment has always been so rare an event, that I was equally surprised and delighted to meet with one in the course of my walks last autumn. They had pitched their little tent under one of the oak trees, perhaps from a certain dim sense of natural beauty, which those who live with nature in the fields are seldom totally without; perhaps because the neighborhood of the coppices and of the deserted hall was favorable to the acquisition of game, and of the little fuel which their hardy habits required. The party consisted only of four—an old crone in a tattered red cloak and black bonnet, who was stooping over a kettle, of which the contents were probably as savory as that of Meg Merrilies', renowned in story; a pretty black-eyed girl at work under the trees; a sun-burned urchin of eight or nine, collecting sticks and dead leaves to feed their out-of-door fire; and a slender lad, two or three years older, who lay basking in the sun, with a couple of shabby dogs of the sort called mongrel, in all the joy of idleness, while a grave, patient donkey stood grazing hard by. It was a pretty picture, with its soft autumnal sky, its rich woodiness, its verdure, the light smoke curling from the fire, and the group disposed around it so harmless, poor outcasts! and so happy-a beautiful picture! The old gipsy was a celebrated fortuneteller, and the post having been so long vacant, she could not have