Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
And tries the old tunes over for an hour.
The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
Set all the young blooms listening through the grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.
The rose has taken off her 'tire of red--
The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
Against earth's chilly bosom, witched with frost.
The robin, that was busy all the June,
Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
Has given place to the brown cricket now.
The very cock crows lonesomely at morn--
Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides--
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.
Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
And live with me the poetry of spring.
* * * * *
POEMS BY CHARLES KINGSLEY
THE THREE FISHERS
Three fishers went sailing away to the west--
Away to the west as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep;
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.
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