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13. The summer is coming, on soft winds borne ;
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore;

Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.
I go where the loved who have left you dwell,

And the flowers are not death's; fare-ye-well, farewell!

MRS. HEMANS.

LESSON CLX.

THE RAIN.

1. THE pleasant rain! the pleasant rain!
By fits it plashing falls

Ontwangling leaf, and dimpling pool;
How sweet its warning calls!
They know it, all the bosomy vales,
High slopes, and verdant meads;
The queenly elms and princely oaks,
Bow down their grateful heads.

2. The withering grass, and fading flowers,
And drooping shrubs look gay;

The bubbling brook, with gladlier song,
+ Hies on its endless way;

All things of earth, the grateful things!
Put on their robes of cheer;

They hear the sound of the warning burst,
And know the rain is near.

3. It comes! it comes! the pleasant rain!
I drink its cooler breath;

It is rich with sighs of fainting flowers,
And roses' fragrant death;

It hath kissed the tomb of the lily pale,
The beds where violets die;

And it bears their life on its living wings;
I feel it wandering by.

4. And yet it comes! The lightning's flash
Hath torn the lowering cloud!

With a distant roar and a nearer crash,
Out bursts the thunder loud.

It comes, with the rush of a god's descent,
On the hushed and trembling earth,

To visit the + shrines of the hallowed grovės,
Where a poet's soul had birth.

5. With a rush, as of a thousand steeds,
Is its swift and glad descent;
Beneath the weight of its passing tread,
The conscious groves are bent.

Its heavy tread, it is lighter now,
And yet, it passeth on;

And now it is up, with a sudden lift,
The pleasant rain hath gone.

6. The pleasant rain! the pleasant rain!
It hath passed above the earth:
I see the smile of the opening cloud,
Like the parted lips of mirth.
The golden joy is spreading wide
Along the blushing west,

And the happy earth gives back her smiles,
Like the flow of a grateful breast.

7. As a blessing sinks in a grateful heart,
That knoweth all its need,

So came the good of the pleasant rain,
O'er hill and verdant fmead.

It shall breathe this truth on the human ear,

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In hall and +cotter's home,

That to bring the gift of a bounteous heaven,
The pleasant rain hath come.

MILLER.

LESSON CLXI.

BIRDS IN AUTUMN.

1. NOVEMBER came on, with an eye severe,

And his stormy language was hoarse to hear;
And the glittering garland of brown and red,

Which he wreathed, for awhile, round the forests' head,
In sudden anger, he rent away,

And all was cheerless, and bare, and gray.

2. Then, the houseless grasshopper told his woes,

And the humming-bird sent forth a wail for the rose, And the spider, that weaver of cunning so deep,

Rolled himself up in a ball, to sleep,

And the cricket his merry horn laid by
On the shelf, with the pipe of the dragon-fly.

3. Soon, voices were heard at the morning prime,
Consulting of flight to a warmer clime;

"Let us go! let us go!" said the bright-winged jay; And his gay spouse sang from a rocking spray, "I'm tired to death of this hum-drum tree, I'll go, if 't is only the world to see."

4. "Will you go," asked the robin, "my only love?" And a tender strain from the leafless grove

+ Responded, "Wherever your lot is cast, 'Mid sunny skies, or the wintry blast,

I am still at your side, your heart to cheer, Though dear is our nest in this thicket here." 5. The toriole told, with a flashing eye,

How his little ones shrank from this frosty sky,
How his mate, with an ague, had shaken the bed,
And had lost her fine voice, by a cold in her head,
And their oldest daughter, an invalid grown,
No health in this terrible climate had known.

6. "I am ready to go," cried the plump young wren,
"From the hateful homes of these northern men;
My throat is sore, and my feet are blue,
I fear I have caught the consumption, too;
And then, I've no confidence left, I own,
In the doctors out of the southern zone."

7. Then, up went the thrush, with a trumpet-call,

And the martins came forth from their box on the wall,
And the towlets peeped out from their secret bower,
And the swallows + convened on the old church-tower,
And the council of blackbirds was long and loud,
Chattering, and flying from tree to cloud.

8. "The dahlia is dead on her throne," said they,
"And we saw the butterfly cold as clay;
Not a berry is found on the russet plains,
Not a kernel of ripened corn remains;
Ev'ry worm is hid, shall we longer stay
To be wasted with famine? Away! away!"

9. But what a strange clamor, on elm and oak,

From a bevy of brown-coated mocking-birds broke;
The theme of each separate speaker they told,
In a shrill report, with such mimicry bold,
That the eloquent orators started to hear
Their own true echoes, so wild and clear.

10. Then, tribe after tribe, with its leader fair,
Swept off through the limitless fields of air;
Who marketh their course to the tropics bright?
Who nerveth their wings for their weary flight?
Who guideth their caravan's trackless way,
By the stars at night, and the cloud by day?

11. The Indian fig, with its arching screen,
Welcomes them in to its vistas green;
And the breathing buds of the spicy tree
Thrill at the bursts of their revelry;
And the bulbul starts, 'mid his carol clear,
Such a rustling of stranger-wings to hear.

12. O wild-wood wanderers! how far away
From your rural homes in our groves, ye stray;

But when they awake at the touch of Spring,
We shall see you again, with your glancing wing,
Your nest 'mid our household trees to raise,
And stir our hearts to our Maker's praise.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

LESSON CLXII.

ADDRESS TO WINTER.

1. O WINTER! ruler of the inverted year,
Thy scattered hair with sleet, like ashes, filled;
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips; thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard, made white with other snows
Than those of age; thy forehead wrapped in clouds;
A leafless branch thy scepter; and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,

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But urged by storms along its slippery way!
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,

And dreaded as thou art.

Thou hold'st the sun

A prisoner in the yet undawning east,

Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him-impatient of his stay-
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still,
+Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering, at short notice, in one group,
The family dispersed, and fixing thought,
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed retirement, and the hour
Of long, uninterrupted evening know.

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3. And here, the needle plies its busy task,
The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower,
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,
Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,
And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed,
Follow the nimble fingers of the fair;

A wreath that can not fade, of flowers that blow
With most success, when all besides decay.

4. The poet's or historian's page, by one
Made vocal for the amusement of the rest;

The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds
The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out;
And the clear voice, symphonious, yet distinct,
And, in the charming strife, triumphant still,
Beguile the night, and set a keener edge
O'er female industry; the threaded steel
Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds.

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5. Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,
Nor such as with a frown forbids the play
Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth.
Nor do we madly, like an impious world,
Who deem religion +frenzy, and the God
That made them, an intruder on their joys,
Start at his awful name, or deem his praise
A jarring note: themes of a graver tone
Exciting oft our gratitude and love,

While we retrace, with mem'ry's pointing +wand,
The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare,
The disappointed foe, deliv'rance found
Unlooked for, life preserved, and peace restored,
Fruits of omnipotent, eternal love.

COWPER.

LESSON CLXIII.

THE BAPTISM.

1. THE fite of baptism had not been performed for several months in the kirk* of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places in which to worship God, and celebrate the ordinances of religion. It was now the Sabbath day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls, had met for divine service, in a place more magnificent than any temple that human hands had ever built to Deity. The congregation had not assembled to the toll of the bell, but each heart knew the hour and observed it; for there are a hundred sun-dials among the hills, woods, moors, and fields; and the shepherd and the peasant see the hours passing by them, in sunshine and shadow.

2. The church in which they were assembled was hewn by God's hand, out of the eternal rock. A river rolled its way through a mighty chasm of cliffs, several hundred feet high, of which the one side presented enormous masses, and the other,

*Church.

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