But the child that stands amid the blossoms gay A Garden Is sweeter, quainter, brighter e'en than they.

CELIA THAXTER.

f Girls

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands;

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard,
In springtime from the cuckoo bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:

Garden f Girls

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;-
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,

We, Hermia,

Helena and Hermia

Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a ouble cherry, seeming parted,

But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart,

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry

Due but to one, and crownéd with one crest.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

'rom "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Phyllis

In petticoat of green,
Her hair about her eyne,
Phyllis beneath an oak

Sat milking her fair flock;

'Mongst that sweet-strained moisture, rare de

light,

Her hand seemed milk, in milk it was so white.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

So Sweet Is She

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

Before rude hands have touched it?

Have marked but the fall of the snow,

you

Before the soil hath smutched it?

Have you felt the wool of the beaver?
Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud of the brier?
Or the nard i̇' the fire?

A Garden

of Girls

A Garden

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

of Girls

Oh, so white! oh, so soft! oh, so sweet, is she!
BEN JONSON.

From "The Triumph of Charis.”

I Love My Jean

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the west,

For there the bonnie lassie lives,

The lassie I lo'e best;

There wild woods grow, and rivers row,

And monie a hill between;

But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair;
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.

ROBERT BURNS.

My Nannie's Awa'

Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays,
An' listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes,
While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw;
But to me it's delightless-my Nannie's awa'.

The snaw-drap an' primrose our woodlands adorn,
An' violets bathe in the weet o' the morn;
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
They mind me o' Nannie-an' Nannie's awa'.

Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the
lawn,

The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn,
An' thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa',
Give over for pity-my Nannie's awa'.

Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow an' gray,
An' soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay;
The dark, dreary winter, an' wild-driving snaw,
Alane can delight me-now Nannie's awa'.

ROBERT Burns.

A Garden

of Girls