The Clouds consign their treasures to the fields,

And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool,
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world.
1. THOMSON-Seasons. Spring. L. 173.

'Tis spring-time on the eastern hills!
Like torrents gush the summer rills;
Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves
The bladed grass revives and lives,
Pushes the mouldering waste away,
And glimpses to the April day.

m. WHITTIER-Mogg Megone. Pt. III.

A tarnish as of rust,

Dims thy late brilliant sheen;

And thy young glories,-leaf and bud and flower,

Change cometh over them with every hour. g. WM. D. GALLAGHER-August.

From all the misty morning air, there comes a summer sound,

A murmur as of waters from skies, and trees, and ground.

The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo.

h. R. W. GILDER-A Midsummer Song. St. 2. Oh, father's gone to market-town, he was up before the day,

And Jamie's after robins, and the man is making hay,

And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill,

While mother from the kitchen door is calling with a will,

"Polly!-Polly!-The cows are in the corn! Oh, where's Polly?"

k.

WM. ERNEST HENLEY-Rhymes and
Rhythms.

O for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers!
O for an iceberg or two at control!
O for a vale that at midday the dew cumbers!
O for a pleasure trip up to the pole!
1.

ROSSITER JOHNSON-Ninety-Nine in the
Shade.

O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be

To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
LONGFELLOW-A Summer Day by the
Sea. L. 9.

m.

d.

Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. SYDNEY SMITH-Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. I. P. 267. Then came the jolly sommer, being dight In a thin silken cassock, coloured greene, That was unlyned all, to be more light. e. SPENSER-Faerie Queene. Bk. VII. Canto VII. St. 29. All-conquering Heat, O, intermit thy wrath! And on my throbbing temples, potent thus, Beam not so fierce! incessant still you flow, And still another fervent flood succeeds, Pour'd on the head profuse. In vain I sigh, And restless turn, and look around for night; Night is far off; and hotter Hours approach. f. THOMSON-Seasons. Summer. L. 451.

From brightening fields of ether fair-disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's
depth;

He comes, attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way.

g. THOMSON-Seasons. Summer. L. 1.

Patient of thirst and toil,

Son of the desert, e'en the Camel feels, Shot through his wither'd heart, the fiery blast. h. THOMSON-Seasons. Summer. L. 965.

Autumn.

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,

And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,
And night by night the monitory blast
Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd
O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,

Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods
Than any joy indulgent Summer dealt.
i.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM-Day and Night
Songs. Autumnal Sonnet.

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest

BRYANT The Death of the Flowers. All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn, Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding

Yellow, mellow, ripened days,
Sheltered in a golden coating;
O'er the dreamy, listless haze,
White and dainty cloudlets floating;
Winking at the blushing trees,

And the sombre, furrowed fallow;
Smiling at the airy ease,

Of the southward flying swallow. Sweet and smiling are thy ways, Beauteous, golden Autumn days.

p. WILL CARLETON-Autumn Days. The summer's throbbing chant is done And mute the choral antiphon; The birds have left the shivering pines To flit among the trellised vines, Or fan the air with scented plumes Amid the love-sick orange blooms, And thou art here alone,-alone,

q.

St. 75.

Sing, little bird! the rest have flown.
O. W. HOLMES-Songs of Many Seasons.
An Old-Year Song. St. 4.

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;-
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
r. HOOD-Ode. Autumn.

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy
dark,
Shake not thy

Deep-founded habitation.

roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car. h. WILLIAM BLAKE-To Winter.

When now, unsparing as the scourge of war, Blasts follow blasts and groves dismantled roar;

Around their home the storm-pinched cattle lows,

No nourishment in frozen pasture grows;
Yet frozen pastures every morn resound
With fair abundance thund'ring to the
ground.

i.

BLOOMFIELD-The Farmer's Boy.
Winter. St. 2.

Look! the massy trunks

Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops,
That glimmer with an amethystine light.
j. BRYANT A Winter Piece. L. 66.

Yet all how beautiful! Pillars of pearl
Propping the cliffs above, stalactites bright
From the ice roof depending; and beneath,
Grottoes and temples with their crystal spires
And gleaming columns radiant in the sun.
k. WM. HENRY BURLEIGH-Winter.
The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.

COLERIDGE-Frost at Midnight. L. 1.