290 SELECT POETRY

By sweet-briar hedges bathed in dew,

Let me my wholesome path pursue;

There, issuing forth, the frequent snail

Wears the dank! way with slimy trail ;?

While as I walk, from pearled bush

The sunny, sparkling drop I brush,

And all the landscape fair I view

Clad in a robe of fresher hue;

And so loud the blackbird sings,

That far and near the valley rings 5

From shelter deep of shaggy rock

The shepherd drives his joyful flock ;

From bowering beech the mower blithe

With new-born vigour grasps the scythe;

While o’er the smooth unbounded meads

Its last faint gleam the rainbow spreads.
Thomas Whurton.

 

NOW AND THEN.

In distant days of wild romance,
Of magic mist and fable,

When stones could argue, trees advance,
And brutes to talk were able ;

When shrubs and flowers were said to preach,
And manage all the parts of speech ;—

*T was then, no doubt, if ‘twas at all,
(But doubts we need not mention, )
That THEN and Now, two adverbs small,
Engaged in sharp contention ;
But how they made each other hear,

Tradition doth not make appear.

\Dank—damp, moist. 2 Trail—track.