" The Rose* . * ' Laughing/ she says, ' into the "World I blow ; * . 

 The silken tassel of my Purse tear, and its Treasure on the Garden 

 throw**'* OMAR KHAYYAM. 



JUNE 



AUTHOR, Poet and Painter, has each in his own way 

 * ^ tried in tint and rhyme and glowing description to 

 catch some of the passing glories of June. It is not given 

 to any one individual to interpret the many beauties in a 

 single picture or poem, although such renderings of praise 

 are helpful to us in reading 



" How sweet the sight of roses, 



In English lanes of June, 

 When every flower uncloses 

 To meet the kiss of noon." 



(MACKENZIE BELL.) 



John Davidson's " Birds in June " brings Nature very near 



to us 



" High in the oak-trees, where the fresh leaves sprout, 

 The blackbirds with their oboe voices make 

 The sweetest broken music all about 

 The beauty of the day for beauty's sake, 

 The wanton shadow and the languid cloud, 

 The grass-green velvet where the daisies crowd ; 

 And all about the air that softly comes 

 Thridding the hedgerows with its noiseless feet, 

 The purling waves with muffled elfin drums, 

 That step along their pebble paven street ; 

 And all about the mates whose love they won, 

 And all about the sunlight and the sun. 

 The thrushes into song more bravely launch 

 Than thrushes do in any other dell ; 

 Warblers and willow-wrens on every branch, 

 Each hidden by a leaf, their rapture tell ; 

 Green-finches in the elms sweet nothings say, 

 Busy with love from dawn to dusk are they. 



37 



