Clouds tempest-strided, heavy-sounding rain.
Wind, darkness, cold, make up thy dismal train,
Gloomy November! How the rivers rise
And echo through the hollows! Sadly flies
The last leaf from the forest, whirling round,
Then hurl'd in anger on the sodden ground.
Sudden the change! The flowers are drown'd with tears;
The pastoral field-paths, muddy, tempt no more;
The plover on the open land appears,
And little redbreast ventures near the door;
The ploughman blows his fingers by his team,
The farmer's cart rolls rumbling down the moor.

Ripe fruits and filberts! Over all the land
The hot air travels, bearing music bland
From shining scythe and sickle. Harvest lays
Rise where the white corn, on a hundred hills,
In the broad valleys, by the sparkling rills,
Bends to the joyous reaper; whilst a haze
Of insect incense fills the world with praise.
Wheat-waving August, in thy straw-bright hair
And leafy zone, with juicy fruitage bound,
What loveliness can with thyself compare?
Where dwells a queen so greatly, grandly crown'd?
Where'er thou tread'st, the ripe grapes cluster round.

Heat and hay-making! Through the scented grass
The sharp scythe rustles, bringing music dear,
With pastoral echoes, to the listening ear;
While, in the sunshine, boy and buxom lass
Raise clover-ridges. As the gate we pass
Leading into the meadow, gales of glee
Come floating breeze-borne over lake and lea.
In the tree's shadow stand the panting kine,
Rambles the angler by the limpid stream:
The earth is full of charity Divine;
Waves the green corn where glancing swallows gleam.
The lanes are loveliness where fair things dream.

Green fields and music. Like a cheerful bard
With song surrounded, gushing where she treads,
Comes joyous June. The great trees bow their heads
Full-leaf'd. On cliff and common hard
Are marks of Summer's fingers. Beauty-starr'd
Are all the walks of Nature: gentle eyes
Peer out from grassy windows, and the skies
Are bridged with feathery clouds where angels glide.
Turn we to earth? The briony and rose
In the green lane are clustering side by side:
And clover-scents, in showers, are wafted wide
By village stile, and where the fountain flows.

Beautiful vestal clad in freshest green,
Fragrant with hyacinths and flowerets wild!
Of the twelve months, come, let me crown thee queen.
Lover of murmuring brooks and music mild!
The year has not a fairer, lovelier child.
Now lambs play in the fields with daisies white,
The cuckoo's voice flows full among the leaves,
The lark far up is singing out of sight,
And the glad thatcher whistles on the eaves.
The robin's nest scarce shows among the moss,
From hill and valley rings a gladsome lay,
Which floats, love-laden, over crag and cross,

With one cheek tear-wet, and the other bright
With passing sunshine, beauty in her eyes;
On her green garments buds of richest dyes;
Her fair brow bound with leaflets, in the light
Winking and shining, like a timid maid,
Blushing with freshness, seeming half afraid,
Comes changeful April. Violets fill one hand;
And these she scatters o'er the vernal land.
Studding the hedge-rows by the lone sheepfold,
And hanging gems in Nature's silent bowers.
The other doth an urn of waters hold,
Which, in soft tears, she weeps upon the flowers.

With fresh gales rushing through the shivering trees,
Drives crashing March. The white clouds southward fly,
And up between them shine blue fields of sky.
The lark's first carol rings among the leas.
Now search the moorlands for the earliest flower,
Timidly blushing 'neath the tempest's wing,
Violet and primrose in the shelter'd bower;
While little lambs are sporting by the spring.
Beside their teams the merry plough-boys sing.
Twitter the birds where golden furze-flowers shine;
The crocus blossoms in the garden ring,

Snow -drifts and ice! Hush'd is the forest-strain,
Save the small chirrup of the busy wren.
And, like a monster moaning as in pain,
The great blast tumbles through the dreary fen,
Sweeps the bare hill, and groans along the glen.
Against the white drift on the frozen plain
The gentle snowdrop rests its drooping head;
Looking so beautiful, as if it came
From that dear land where holy angels tread.
O floweret fair, 'mid storm and whirlwind bred,
White as the cold snow which around thee lies,
How dost thou tell, when bitter winds are fled,

The New Year wakens like a peevish child
In Winter's chamber. Nature, his dear nurse,
Rocks him upon a rolling cradle-cloud,
While the cold winds lift up their voices loud,
Filling the under world with strainings wild, —
A tempest lullaby! In heaps up-piled
The white snow fills the land, a drapery chaste,
On mead productive, moor, and rocky waste.
Echoes the flail from the old barn of thatch,
The wild duck shelters in the frozen fen,
The redbreast hops upon the wooden latch,
And King Frost lords it o'er the icy glen.

LI - PO;

OR, THE GOOD GOVERNOR .

A Chinese Eclogue

Where Honan's hills Kiansi's vale inclose,
And Xifa's lake its glassy leve! shows;
Li-po's fair island lay — delightful seene! —
With swelling slopes, and groves of every green:
On azure rocks his rich pavilion plac'd,
Rear'd its light front with golden columns grac'd;
High o'er the roof a weeping willow hung,
And jasmine boughs the lattice twin'd among;
In porcelain vases crested amaranth grew,
And starry aster, crimson, white, and blue;