SUMMER'S SONG. 261 water itself ripples on, clear and musical, and chequered with small shadows from many a leaf, and bush, and moving bough. We lift our heads--and in the west what a ruby sun-what a gorgeous assemblage of sunset clouds!WILLIAM HOWITT's Rural Life. SUMMER'S SONG. Who calleth? I am coming, I am coming As I haste I hear discourses They say, "Doth not summer come?" Yes, I'm coming, oh, I'm coming. Who calleth? Bird in greenwood, deer in forest, And in every alley known To venturous explorers among men- We fain would bud and blow, In the meadows yond' all day. Oh sweet summer, sweetest summer, come again!" Yes, I'm coming, oh! I'm coming. Who calleth? All the great sea-waves are weary And would like to go to sleep On the surface of the deep, With the filmy morning mist And wreathe them in a veil about my brow. Of blue, and rose, and grey Fresh spells of colour, and fresh majesty of form. Seated by your waning fire, And storm-beat wanderer on the great earth roaming, BESSIE PARKES. With summer comes the universal yearning after her, in no heart so intensely felt as in that of Poet city-pent; witness the following: ODE TO SUMMER. Oh well may poets make a fuss What joy have I in June's return? But faint the flagging zephyr springs, And turns me "dust to dust." My sun his daily course renews His setting shows more tamely still, But down a chimney's pot! Oh! but to hear the milk-maid blithe, Or early mower whet his scythe The dewy meads among! My grass is of that sort-alas! That makes no hay, call'd sparrow-grass By folks of vulgar tongue! The pipe whereon, in olden day, But merely breathes unwelcome fumes, All rural things are vilely mock'd, Shades-vernal shades! where wine is sold! An Ingram's rustic chair! Where are ye, London meads and bowers, Wherein the zephyr wons? Alas! Moor Fields are fields no more! No pastoral scene procures me peace; No cot set round with trees; No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks; With brokers, not with bees. Oh well may poets make a fuss In summer time, and sigh, " O rus !" My heart is all at pant to rest In greenwood shades,-my eyes detest THOMAS HOOD. MOWING. Hark! where the sweeping scythe now rips along, |