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Title: Landscape and Song

Editor: E. Nesbit

Release date: December 10, 2004 [eBook #14320]
Most recently updated: December 18, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Amanda Cook and the PG Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LANDSCAPE AND SONG ***


Landscape and Song

 

 


To Annette from Uncle Tom Xmas 1887 - Toronto Canada

 

 

Landscape and Song

 

 

Children on See Saw

 

 

Landscape and Song, Selected and Arranged by E. Nesbit
LONDON:
HENRY J. DRANE & CO.
Paternoster Row E.C.                  New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

 

 

 

River Scene

I.

                 What dreams the flower cups enfold
                    Within their fragrant leaves,
                 Of meadow-ways grown fair with spring,
                    Soft mists that April weaves;
                       And cottage gardens where the scent
                       Of flowers is with the wood-smoke blent.

                 The ceaseless ripple of the brook,
                    Babbling against the broken arch,
                 The little firwood's tasselled spires,
                    The cloud of verdure on the larch;
                       The gold-green glimmer of the woods,
                       Where tender twilight always broods.

                                                                  C. Brooke.

 

 

II.

                          There is dew for the flow'ret,
                             And honey for the bee,
                          And bowers for the wild bird,
                             And love for you and me.

                          There are tears for the many,
                             And pleasures for the few,
                          But let the world pass on, dear,
                             There's love for me and you.

                                                                        Hood.
Water Lily Scene

 

 

III.

THE ROSE IN OCTOBER.

                   O late and sweet, too sweet, too late!
                      What nightingale will sing to thee?
                      The empty nest, the shivering tree,
                   The dead leaves by the garden gate,
                   And cawing crows for thee will wait,
                                       O sweet and late!

                   Where wert thou when the soft June nights
                      Were faint with perfume, glad with song?
                      Where wert thou when the days were long
                   And steeped in Summer's young delights?
                   What hopest thou now but checks and slights,
                                       Brief days, lone nights?

                   Stay, there's a gleam of Winter wheat
                      Far on the hill; down in the woods
                      A very heaven of stillness broods;
                   And through the mellow sun's worn heat,
                   Lo! tender pulses round thee beat,
                                       O late and sweet!

 

 

IV.

               There's beauty all around our paths, if but our
                      watchful eyes
               Can trace it midst familiar things and through
                      their lowly guise;
               We may find it when a hedgerow showers its
                      blossoms o'er our way,
               Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last
                      red light of day.
                                                                  F. Hemans.
House with Horse and Wagon

 

 

 



V.

Decorative H

ALF covered with last year's leaves,
   She peeped from her russet bed;

     The great bare branches of the trees
        Were tossed and swayed overhead;

The hedge looked barren and prickly,
    Without the sign of a leaf;
Over the flower there bowed a heart
    Grown cold with the snows of grief.

 

                                      The violet's fragile petals
                                         Enfolded a heart of gold,
                                      And a deeper wealth of perfume,
                                         Than the tiny cup could hold;
                                      So the great wind roaring above
                                         Sent a tiny zephyr down,
                                      To drift aside the sheltering bloom,
                                         And bereave her of her crown.

It stole the familiar scent,
    To give to the burdened heart
With only a cold north wind
    In the world to take its part;
The flower died in the bleak March air,
    And the heart went on its way;
The violet's life was blooming there,
    And melting the snows away.
                                              Caris Brooke.
Snow Scene


 

 

 

Bird VI

Yet nature holds a gracious hand,
    Her ancient ways pursuing;
And spreads the charms we loved of old,
    To aid the heart's renewing.

Here her long crests of fringèd crag
    Allure the skyward swallows;
Here the still dove's low love-note floats
    Above her leafy hollows.

                       Here its calm strength her hillside rears,
                            From heaving slopes of clover;
                       Here still the pewit pipes and flits
                            Within his furzy cover.

                       Here hums the wild-bee in the thyme,
                           Here glows the royal heather;
                       And youth comes back upon the breeze,
                           And youth's unclouded weather.

                                                         F.T. Palgrave.

Here hums the wild bee in the thyme

 

 

Stream Scene

VII.

                                       AN APPEAL.
            Dear, do not die!
            Of cypresses and grassy graves sing I--
            I hang with wreaths of song death's grief-grown cross,
            And weep, to music, for Life's infinite loss,
            And make the sweetest verse of bitterest woe,
            --I know the way because I love you so;
            But I have written griefs that I have known
            In other's heart's blood, never in my own.
            If you died what more could be sung or said?
            I could not sing of Death if you were dead.

            Dear, do not love!
            Do not love me, keep still aloof, above!
            While you and Love in far-off glory stand
            Clear sounds the voice, and harp responds to hand.
            But if you loved me--if you came quite near
            And set Love 'mid life's common things and dear--
            Mute would the voice be, Love would be too fair
            To waste upon the wide world's empty air,
            And, songless, I should droop and vainly pine--
            I could not sing of Love if you were mine!       E. Nesbit.

 

 

Girl on Road              VIII.

I know the way she went
Home with her maiden
       posy,
For her feet have touch'd
       the meadows
And left the daisies
       rosy.

                 Tennyson.

 

Cow Scene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



                        IX.
Decorative A
golden radiance shines,
And day declines;
  Red in the dying sun,
     Day's course is run;
  And weary labourers have home-
        ward gone,
  Their day's work done.

  The cornfield now is still,
            To-morrow will
  Bring back the men who reap:
            But now asleep
      The woods and fields and
          meadows seem to lie--
               Restful as I.
                                     E. Nesbit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tree

 

X.

As a twig trembles which a bird
  Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;
  I only know she came and went.


                       As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
                          The blue dome's measureless content,
                       So my soul held that moment's heaven;--
                          I only know she came and went.

                       As at one bound, our swift Spring heaps
                          The orchard full of bloom and scent,
                       So clove her May my wintry sleeps;--
                          I only know she came and went.

                       An angel stood and met my gaze
                          Through the low doorway of my tent;
                       The tent is struck, the vision stays;--
                          I only know she came and went.

Tree Scene

 

 

Oh, when the room grows
       slowly dim,
    And life's last oil is
       nearly spent,
One gush of light these
       eyes will brim,
    Only to think she came
       and went.
                 J.R. Lowell.

 

Castle Scene

 

 

XI.

EVENING SONG.

                Waking, I dream of thy life that shall be
                   Never by sorrow made weary;
                Earth shall be soft with love for thee,
                   Down-lined the nest of my dearie.
                Millions of flowers to gladden thy way,
                Springing from seeds that my heart sets to-day.
                                   Sleep, darling baby, baby!

                Sleeping, dream thou of the Spirit of Spring--
                   Of sweets and of scents she is bringing;
                Just for the flowers' sake thrushes will sing,
                   Flowers blow for love of the singing.
                In the world's harmony take thou thy part,
                So shall the springtide bloom in thy heart!
                                   Sleep, darling baby, baby!
                                                                    E. Nesbit.
House Scene

 

 

Plant

PlantXII.

ow comes the first chill whisper of the
      end

                         While yet the woods are green and skies are
                             blue;
                  While under loads of corn great waggons bend,
                     And sunshine makes us glad the whole day through.
                  The trees are full of leaf and of delight,
                     Yet through them sighs the forecast of the time
                  When the lean branches shall be wondrous, white
                     With winter's lovely radiant frost and rime.

                  The fallen leaves as yet are hardly missed,
                     The rest will fade--until the woods are bare,
                  And the dim glades where summer lovers kissed,
                     Forget how leafy and divine they were.
                  And in our souls come whispers of despair,

                     "Failure again--failure for evermore!
                  Leaves only for one summer's space are fair,
                     No flower can live to see the fruit it bore."

                  Yet every spring millions of flowers have birth,
                     And every autumn brings its fruits and sheaves;
                  But when the fruit and grain make glad the earth,
                     Dead are the flowers, and falling are the leaves.
                  Though all our lives we see our dear dreams die,--
                     Each noble dream brings fruit. It may not be
                  The fruit we hoped it would be followed by,
                     But the fruit lasts to all eternity.


               No seed is lost--in earth's brown bosom cast;
                  No deed is lost--of all the deeds we do;
               Each grows to fruit--is harvested at last,
                  Haply in shape undreamed of, fair, and new.
               And, though we die before the end be won,
                                               Our deeds live on; and other men
                                                         will cry,
                                                               Seeing the end of what

Tree Scene     we have begun,
"Still lives the fruit
    for which the flowers
    had to die!"

                  
E. Nesbit.

Tree Scene

 

 

Birds

 

 

XIII.

 Birds, joyous birds, of the wander-
        ing wing!
 Whence is it ye come with the
        flowers of Spring?
 "We come from the shores of the
        green old Nile,
 From the land where the roses of
        Sharon smile,
 And each worn wing hath regained
        its home
 Under peasants' roof-trees or
        monarch's dome."

             And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,
             Since last ye traversed the blue sea's foam?
             "We have found a change, we have found a pall,
             And a gloom o'ershadowing the banquet's hall,
             And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt,--
             Naught looks the same, save the nest we built."

House and Field Scene

 

 

  O joyous birds! it hath still
         been so;
  Through the halls of kings
         doth the tempest go!
  But the huts of the hamlet
         lie still and deep,
  And the hills o'er their
         quiet a vigil keep:
  Say, what have ye found in
         the peasant's cot,
  Since last ye parted from
         that sweet spot?--

"A change we have found there--and many a change!
Faces and footsteps, and all things strange!
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,
And the young that were, have a brow of care.
And the place is hushed where the children played--
Naught looks the same, save the nest we made."
                                                              F. Hemans.

 

 

The End

 

 

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