So comest thou, Winter, finally to doom. The sinking year; and with thy ice-dropp'd sprays,

Cypress and yew, engarland her pale tomb, Her vanish'd hopes and aye departed days.

ANNA SEWARD.

SUMMER Now on hills, rocks, and streams and vales and plains

Full looks the shining day.-Our gardens wear

The gorgeous robes of the consummate year. With laugh and shout and song, stout maids and

swains Heap high the fragrant hay, as through rough lanes

Rings the yet empty wagon.-See in air
The pendent cherries, red with tempting stains,
Gleam through their boughs.2 Summer, thy bright

career
Must slacken soon in Autumn's milder sway;

Then thy now heap'd and jocund meads shall stand

Smooth, vacant-silent, through th' exulting land As waves thy rival's golden fields, and gay Her reapers throng. She smiles, and binds the

sheaves, Then bends her parting step o'er fallen and rustling leaves.

ANNA SEWARD.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. How happily, how happily the flowers die away! Oh, could we but return to earth as easily as they ! Just live a life of sunshine, of innocence and bloom, Then drop without decrepitude, or pain, into the tomb! The gay and glorious creatures! they neither “ toil

nor spin;" Yet, lo! what goodly raiment they're all apparelled in; No tears are on their beauty, but dewy gems more

bright Than ever brow of eastern queen endiadem'd with

light. The young rejoicing creatures! their pleasures never

pall; Nor lose in sweet contentment, because so free to

all ! The dew, the showers, the sunshine, the balmy,

blessed air, Spend nothing of their freshness, though all may

freely share. The happy careless creatures! of time they take no

heed; Nor weary of his creeping, nor tremble at his speed ; Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light

away; Nor when 't is gone, cry dolefully, “would God that

it were day!" And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest, Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's

breast; No pain have they in dying—no shrinking from de

cayOh! could we but return to earth as easily as they!

Miss BOWLES.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the

year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows

brown and sere. Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd

leaves lie dead ; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's The robin and the wren are flown, and from the

shrub the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the

gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that

lately sprung and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sister

hood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of

flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good

of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but cold Novem

ber rain Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones

again. The wind-flowerand the violet, they perish'd long ago, And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the sum

mer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the

wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn

beauty stood, Till the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls

the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from

upland, glade and glen. And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still

such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their win

ter home, When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though

all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fra

grance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty

died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by

my side :

In the cold moist earth we laid her when the forest

cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life

so brief; Yet not unmeet it was, that one, like that young

friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

BRYANT.

Note.-We have placed the two preceding specimens of foreign and native poetry, on the same subject, together, that the reader may draw a fair com. parison between them.

SONNET
As thus oppress’d with many a heavy care

(Though young yet sorrowful), I turn my feet To the dark woodland,—longing much to greet The form of Peace, if chance she sojourns there, Deep thought and dismal, verging to despair,

Fills my sad breast : and tired with this vain coil

I shrink dismay'd before life's upland toil, And as amid the leaves the evening air

Whispers still melody, I think, ere long,
When I no more can hear, these woods will speak!
And then a sad smile plays upon my cheek,

And mournful phantasies upon me throng:
And I do think with a most strange delight
On the calm slumbers of the dead man's night.

H. K. WHITE.

TO CONSUMPTION. GENTLY, most gently on thy victim's head,

Consumption, lay thine hand! Let me decay

Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away, And softly go to slumber with the dead! And if 'tis true what holy men have said

That strains angelic oft foretell the day

Of death to those good men who fall thy prey, O, let th' aerial music round

my

bed Dissolving slow in dying symphony

Whisper the solemn warning to my ear:
That I may bid my weeping friends good bye

Ere I depart upon my journey drear;
And, smiling faintly on the painful past,
Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.

H. K. WHITE.

EVENING MUSIC OF THE ANGELS. Low warblings, now, and solitary harps, Were heard among the angels, touch'd and tuned As to an evening hymn, preluding soft To cherub voices. Louder as they swell’d, Deep strings struck in, and hoarser instruments, Mix'd with clear silver sounds, till concord rose Full as the harmony of winds to heaven; Yet sweet as nature's springtide melodies To some worn pilgrim, first, with glistening eyes, Greeting his native valley, whence the sounds Of rural gladness, herds, and bleating flocks, The chirp of birds, blithe voices, lowing kine, The dash of waters, reed, or rustic pipe, Blent with the dulcet distance-mellow'd bell, Come, like the echo of his early joys. In every pause, from spirits in mid air, Responsive still were golden viols heard, And heavenly symphonies stole faintly down.

HILLHOUSE