Though woodbines flaunt, and roses glow Thou need'st not be ashamed to show Thy tender blossoms are ! How soft thy voice, when woods are still, A sweet air lifts the little bough, Lone whispering through the bush ! But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring, The fresh green days of life's fair spring, Scorn'd bramble of the brake! once more To gad with thee the woodlands o'er, In freedom and in joy. THE GRASSHOPPER. Happy insect! what can be Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, ELLIOTT. RURAL VERSES. Thou dost innocently joy Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire; To thee of all things upon earth, Life is no longer than thy mirth. Dost neither age nor winter know: But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung Thy fill, the flowery leaves among, (Voluptuous, and wise withal, Epicurean animal!) Sated with thy summer feast, Thou retir'st to endless rest. COWLEY. THE HAREBELL. It springeth on the heath Like to some elfin dweller of the wild Stemmed with the gossamer, Soft as the blue eyes of a poet's child. The very flower to take Into the heart and make The cherished memory of all pleasant places; And straight is pictured well We vision wild sea-rocks, The forest's sylvan well, Where the poor wounded hart comes down to drink. We vision moors far-spread, Where blooms the heather red, And hunters with their dogs lie down at noon; On mountain-sides their sheep, Cheating the time with flowers and fancies boon. 365 Old slopes of pasture-ground; Rise at the speaking of the harebell's name. We see the sere turf brown, Scarce raising from the stem its thick-set flowers; And the strong ivy-growth o'er crumbling towers. Light harebell, there thou art, Of the old splendour of the days gone by, Pant through the distant trees, That on the hill-top grow broad-branch'd and high. Oh, when I look on thee, In thy fair symmetry, And look on other flowers as fair beside, My sense is gratitude That God has been thus good, To scatter flowers, like common blessings wide. MARY HOWITT. The poetry of earth is never dead; When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead KEATS. Here rustic taste at leisure trimly weaves Peep through the diamond panes their gilded heads. CLARE. THE HOUSE FLY. During the latter end of this and the commencement of the following month flies abound, and are frequently a great annoyance in our houses. In such cases our readers will not be unwilling to hear of a simple mode of ridding their rooms of such a nuisance. We quote again from the author of "The Chronicles of the Seasons." Persons who have never visited the south of Europe during the hot months are doubtless unable to form anything like a correct idea of the annoyance occasioned by flies; but the accounts of travellers who have themselves experienced it are sufficient to show that they are a much more formidable pest in those countries than with us. "It is not," says Arthur Young, "that they bite, sting, or hurt, but they buzz, teaze, and worry; your mouth, ears, and nose, are full of them; they swarm on every eatable; and if they are not incessantly driven away by a person who has nothing else to do, to eat a meal is impossible." Nor is it only to Spain, Italy, and the other warm regions of Europe, that this nuisance is confined: it seems equally prevalent in the other hot countries of the world; while in the more temperate climes we find the same evil, only in a mitigated form. During the latter part of our summer, the numbers of these insects that enter our apartments, and the active curiosity they display in perching on and running over every object in it, and also the personal annoyances we suffer from them, are sufficiently known. The remedies invented to lessen the inconvenience are almost entirely useless, seeing that if we destroy a large number of these insects by sweetened infusions of green tea, quassia, &c., a number equally large is generally ready to take the place of the destroyed. It was therefore on a subject of general interest that Mr. Spence wrote, when he communicated to the Entomological Society the account of a mode employed by a friend of his in Florence to remove this drawback to the comfort of existence. He tells us that his curiosity was greatly excited on being told by a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of that city, that for two or three years he had entirely succeeded in excluding flies from his apartments, though |