Landscape and Song

Excerpt

LONDON:
HENRY J. DRANE & CO.
Paternoster Row E.C.                  New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

I.

                 What dreams the flower cups enfold
                    Within their fragrant leaves,
                 Of meadow-ways grown fair with spring,
                    Soft mists that April weaves;
                       And cottage gardens where the scent
                       Of flowers is with the wood-smoke blent.

                 The ceaseless ripple of the brook,
                    Babbling against the broken arch,
                 The little firwood's tasselled spires,
                    The cloud of verdure on the larch;
                       The gold-green glimmer of the woods,
                       Where tender twilight always broods.

                                                                  C. Brooke.

II.

                          There is dew for the flow'ret,
                             And honey for the bee,
                          And bowers for the wild bird,
                             And love for you and me.

                          There are tears for the many,
                             And pleasures for the few,
                          But let the world pass on, dear,
                             There's love for me and you.

                                                                        Hood.

III.

THE ROSE IN OCTOBER.

                   O late and sweet, too sweet, too late!
                      What nightingale will sing to thee?
                      The empty nest, the shivering tree,
                   The dead leaves by the garden gate,
                   And cawing crows for thee will wait,
                                       O sweet and late!

                   Where wert thou when the soft June nights
                      Were faint with perfume, glad with song?
                      Where wert thou when the days were long
                   And steeped in Summer's young delights?
                   What hopest thou now but checks and slights,
                                       Brief days, lone nights?

                   Stay, there's a gleam of Winter wheat
                      Far on the hill; down in the woods
                      A very heaven of stillness broods;
                   And through the mellow sun's worn heat,
                   Lo!...