--_Macaulay_.
5. To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last, bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony and shroud and pall
And breathless darkness and the narrow house
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,--
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice.--_Bryant_.
6. Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;
Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.--_Longfellow_.
7. I like the lad who, when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed praise
Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,
Cried, "Served him right! 'tis not at all surprising;
The worm was punished, sir, for early rising.
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