V. 57. THE DYING CHILD. 1. MOTHER, I'm tired, and I would fain1 be sleeping; Let me repose upon thy bosom seek; But promise me that thou wilt leave off weeping, But in my dreams all is so wondrous bright; I see the angèl children smiling gladly, When from my weary eyes I shut out light. 2. Mother, one stands beside me now! and listen! They are the flowers the angel scatterèth, 3. Why dost thou clåsp me as if I were going? ANDERSEN. 3 1 Fain, with joy or pleasure; at Odensee, April 2, 1805. His writgladly. 2 Ac cord', the union of different sounds, which is agreeable to the ear; agreement of things. 3 Hans Christian Andersen, a Danish poet and novelist, was born ings generally are very popular. His novel, "Improvisatore," his charming "Fairy Tales" for children, and many of his other works, have been translated into almost every modern language. He died in 1875. SECTION XVI. I. 58. THE MERRY SUMMER MONTHS. THE 1. HEY come! the merry summer months of beauty, song, and flowers; They come the gladsome months that bring thick leafinèss to bowers. Up, up, my heart! and walk abroad; fling cark1 and care aside; 2. The grass is soft, its velvet touch is grateful to the hand; It stirs their blood with kindest love, to bless and welcome thee : 3. There is no cloud that sails along the ocean of yon sky, But hath its own winged mariners to give it melody; Thou seest their glittering fans outspread, all gleaming like red gold; 4. But soft! mine ear upcaught a sound-from yonder wood it came ! 4 5. Good Lord! it is a gracious boon for thought-crazed wight like me, To smell again these summer flowers beneath this summer-tree ! 1 Cark, a state of anxiety or op pression under câre; solitude. 2 Scoff, mockery; reproach. 4 Mo not'o nous, presenting a tiresome sameness. 5 Boon, a gift; a present. To suck once more in every breath their little souls ǎway, 6. I'm sadder now—I have had cause; but oh! I'm proud to think I II. 59. SUMMER. THANK heaven ěvèry summer's day of my life that my lot was humbly cåst within the hearing of romping brooks, and beneath the shadow of oaks. And from all the tramp and bustle of the world, into which fortune has led me in these latter years of my life, I delight to steal away for days and for weeks together, and bathe my spirit in the freedom of the old woods, and to grow young again lying upon the brook-side, and counting the white clouds that sail along the sky, softly and tranquilly-even as holy memories go stealing over the vault 4 of life. 2. Two days since, I was sweltering in the heat of the city, jostled by the thousand eager workers, and pånting under the shadow of the walls. But I have stolen away; and, for two hours of healthful regrowth into the darling påst, I have been lying, this blessed summer's morning, upon the gråssy bank of a stream that babbled me to sleep in boyhood. Dear old stream! unchanging, unfaltering-with no harsher notes now than then-never growing old, smiling in your silver rustle, 1 Truant (tro'ant), idle, and shirk ing duty; loitering. 2 Yōre, of yore, of old time; lõng since; long agō. 3 William Motherwell, a Scottish poet and journalist, was born in Glasgow, Oct. 13, 1797, and died in that city, Nov. 1, 1835. 4 Vault (valt), a continued arch or curved covering. 5 Jostled (jos'ld), run against and shaken; caused to totter or move unsteadily; disturbed by crowding. • Băb'bled, made a constant mûrmûring noise; uttered words imperfectly. and calming yourself in the broad, plăcid pools; I love you as I love a friend. 3. But now that the sun has grown scalding hot, and the waves of heat have come rocking under the shadow of the meadow oaks, I have sought shelter in a chamber of the old farm-house. The window-blinds are closed; but some of them are sadly shattered, and I have intertwined in them a few branches of the late blossoming white azaleä,1 so that every puff of the summer âir comes to me cooled with fragrance. 4. A dimple or two of the sunlight still steals through my flowery screen, and dances, as the breeze moves the branches, upon the oaken floor of the farm-house. Through one little gap, indeed, I can see the broad stretch of meadow, and the workmen in the field bending and swaying to their scythes. I can see, too, the glistening of the steel, as they wipe their blades ; and can just cătch, floating on the air, the measured, tinkling thwack of the rifle 2 stroke. 5. Here and there a lark, scâred from his feeding-place in the grass, soars up, bubbling forth his melody in globules of silvery sound, and settles upon some tall tree, and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying twigs. I hear, too, a quail piping from the meadow fence, and another trilling his ǎnswering whistle from the hills. Nearer by, the tyrant king-bird is poised on the topmost branch of a veteran peâr-tree; and now and then dashes down, assassin-like, upon some home-bound, honey-laden bee, and then, with a smack of his bill, resumes his predatory watch. 6. As I sit thus, watching through the interstices of my leafy screen the various images of country life, I hear distant mutterings from beyond the hills. The sun has thrown its shadow upon the pewter diäl, two hours beyond the meridian line. Great cream-colored heads of thunder-clouds are lifting above 1 A zā'le a, a class of flowering plants, mostly natives of China or North America. 2 Rifle, a thin blade or strip of wood covered with emery or similar material,used for sharpening scythes; also, a whetstone for a scythe. 3 Globule, a little globe. 4 Prěd'a to ry, hungry; given to plunder. 5 In'ter stice, that which comes between or separates one thing and another; an empty space between things; a hole. 6 Me rid'i an, the point directly overhead; mid-day. the sharp, clear line of the western horizon; the light breeze dies away, and the air becomes stifling, even under the shădōw of my withered boughs in the chamber window. 7. The white-capped clouds roll up nearer and nearer to the sun, and the creamy måsses below grow dark in their seams. The mutterings, that came faintly before, now spread into wide volumes of rolling sound, that echo again and again from the eastward heights. I hear in the deep intervals the men shouting to their teams in the meadows; and great companies of startled swallows are dashing in all directions around the gray roofs of the barn. 8. The clouds have now well-nigh reached the sun, which seems to shine the fiercer for its coming eclipse. The whole west, as I look from the sources of the brook to its lazy drifts under the swamps that lie to the south, is hung with a curtain of darkness; and, like swift-working gōlden ropes that lift it toward the zenith,1 long chains of lightning flash through it, and the growling thunder seems like the rumble of the pulleys. 9. I thrust away my azāleä boughs, and fling back the shattered blinds, as the sun and the clouds meet; and my room darkens with the coming shadows. For an instant the edges of the thick, creamy måsses of cloud are gilded by the shrouded sun, and shows gorgeous scallops 2 of gold that toss upon the hem of the storm. But the blazonry fades as the clouds mount, and the brightening lines of the lightning dart up from the lower skirts, and heave the billowy masses into the middle heaven. 3 10. The workmen are urging their oxen fåst ǎcross the meadow; and the loiterers come straggling åfter, with rakes upon their shoulders. The air freshens, and blows now from the face of the coming clouds. I see the great elms in the plain, swaying their tops, even before the storm-breeze has reached me; and a bit of ripened grain, upon a swell of the meadow, waves and tosses like a billowy sea. 1 11. Presently I hear the rush of the wind, and the cherry and Zenith, that point of the heavens directly overhead. * Scallop (skŏl'lup), a recess or cûrving of the edge of any thing, into parts of circles; a kind of sea shell-fish. 3 Blāʼzon ry, showy display; exhibition of coats of arms. |