' Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they ? 



Think not of them ; thou hast thy music too, 

 While barred clouds bloom the softly dying day, 



And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 

 Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

 Among the river shallows, borne aloft 



Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; 

 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn ; 

 Hedge crickets sing ; and now with treble soft 

 The redbreast whistles from a garden croft, 



And gathering swallows twitter from the skies." 



KEATS 



It was a fair and mild autumnal sky, 

 And earth's ripe pleasures met the admiring eye, 

 As a rich beauty, when her bloom is lost, 

 Appears \vith more magnificence and cost." 



CRABBE. 



