THE GREENWOOD.

WHEN 'tis summer
weather,

fairy sound,

The waters clear is humming
round,

Thy image. Earth, tnat nourished thee, shal! claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;

And the yellow bee, with To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor coulds't thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
To hear the murmuring dove, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,

And the cuckoo sings unseen,
And the leaves are waving

green

O, then 't is sweet,

In some retreat,

With those whom on earth

alone we love,

Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;

And to wind through the green- The venerable woods; rivers that move

wood together.

But when 't is winter weather,

And crosses grieve,

And friends deceive,

And rain and sleet
The lattice beat-
O, then 't is sweet
To sit and sing

Of the friends with whom, in the days of spring,
We roamed through the greenwood together.
WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

THANATOPSIS.

O him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

In majesty, and the complaining brooks,

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings-yet the dead are there!
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone!

So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men-
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off-
Shall one by one, be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take