"Night's candles are burnt out and jocund day
Stands tie-toe on the misty mountain-top."

and

"But look, the morn in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill." Tennyson has:

"Morn in the white wake of the morning star,
Came furrowing all the orient into gold."

Sterling has:

"Morn comes drifting on its golden tides."

When it is undertaken to embody the emotion aroused by certain aspects of nature, the nature quality becomes secondary to the human qualities the poet sees mirrored in the phenomena.

This results in such poetic conceptions, quoted later on, as Edwin Markham's "The Joy of the Hills,' " Herbert Bashford's "The Song of the Forest Ranger,” Ina Coolbrith's "In Blossom Time," Barry Cornwall's "The Sea," and Robert Browning's lines from "Saul" beginning, “O our manhood's prime vigor" and ending, “Forever in Joy." These are the record of man's joy in

nature.

The first mentioned is the type. It is later given in full. All these poems when interpreted with the rhythmic swing belonging to them will strongly appeal to the older children.

In a group by themselves are those verses which are supposedly attempts to reproduce the notes of certain birds. The "Song of the Brown Thrush" by Henry van Dyke, and "The Voice of the Dove" by Joaquin Miller are really reflections of bits of Philosophy which the author chooses to realize in the bird song, thus:

THE SONG OF THE BROWN THRUSH.
Luck, luck,

What luck?

Good enough for me!
I'm alive, you see.
Sun shining,

No repining;
Never borrow

Idle sorrow;
Drop it!

Cover it up!
Hold your cup!
Joy will fill it,

Don't spill it,

Steady, be ready,

Good luck!

-Henry van Dyke. (By permission of the author, Chas. Scribners' Sons, Publishers.)

So also in "The Voice of the Dove" already quoted. It should be remarked that only lines of the type of "Today I saw the dragonfly" are usually strictly interpreted as nature poetry. It is noticed that poems like the last two quoted, when literally construed ascribe to the birds powers of feeling and reason they do not posses. This quality of literature, however, is valuable as beautifully calling attention to the particular nature-object.

James Whitcomb Riley's lines beginning:

"Little brook Little brook!
You have such a happy look;
Such a very merry manner
As you swerve curve and crook!"

further illustrate the beauty of this kind of nature production. The following poems are striking as they combine with wonderful pictures of nature, wildness and swing of melody unrivaled.

THE SEA.

The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever-free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And Silence wheresoe'er I go;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love (oh! how I love) to ride.
On the fierce foaming bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below.
And why the southwest blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more;
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh it's mother's nest:
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open Sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their back of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the Ocean-child!

I have lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,

With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought, nor sighed for change;
And death, whenever he come to me
Shall come on the wide unbounded Sea!

THE JOY OF THE HILLS.

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats,
Checking the field-lark's rippling notes-
Lightly I sweep

From steep to steep:

Over my head through the branches high
Come glimpses of a rushing sky;

The tall oats brush my horse's flanks;
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget,
Life's hoard of regret-

All the terror and pain
Of the chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind:
I leave you a blur behind.

I am lifted clate-the skies expand:

Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls:
I ride with the voices of waterfalls!

I swing on as one in a dream-I swing
Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!
The world is gone like an empty word:

My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!

-Edwin Markham.

(By permission of the author, McClure Phillips & Co.,

Publishers.)

IN BLOSSOM TIME.

It's O my heart, my heart,

To be out in the sun and sing-
To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and the blossoming!

Sing loud, O bird in the tree;

O bird, sing aloud in the sky,

And honey-bees, blacken the clover seas-
There is none of you glad as I.

The leaves laugh low in the wind,

Laugh low, with the wind at play;
And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away!

For O but the world is fair, is fair-
And O but the world is sweet!

I will out in the gold of the blossoming mould,
And sit at the Master's feet.