There, a familiar native, I frequent

The shade of ancient ilexes, or pass
A rippling shadow over rippling grass,

Or leap unharmed down some sheer, swift descent,
A light-foot Mercury; or else I lie

Like a still lake hoarding the azure sky.

UP! UP! MY FRIEND

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double.

Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth

Our minds and hearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:

We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art;

Close up these barren leaves:

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

THERE IS STRENGTH IN THE SOIL

BY ARTHUR STRINGER

There is strength in the soil;

In the earth there is laughter and youth.

There is solace and hope in the upturned loam.
And lo, I shall plant my soul in it here like a seed!
And forth it shall come to me as a flower of song;

For I know it is good to get back to the earth
That is orderly, placid, all-patient!

It is good to know how quiet
And noncommittal it breathes,
This ample and opulent bosom
That must some day nurse us all!

A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER

BY SIDNEY LANIER

Into the woods my Master went,

Clean forspent, forspent.

Into the woods my Master came,

Forspent with love and shame.

But the olives they were not blind to Him;

The little gray leaves were kind to Him;
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him

When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,

And He was well content.

Out of the woods my Master came,

Content with death and shame.

When Death and Shame would woo Him last,

From under the trees they drew Him last:

'Twas on a tree they slew Him-last,

When out of the woods He came.

BEFORE DAWN IN THE WOOD

BY MARGUERITE WILKINSON

Upon our eyelids, dear, the dew will lie,
And on the roughened meshes of our hair,
While little feet make bold to scurry by

And half-notes shrilly cut the quickened air.

Our clean, hard bodies, on the clean, hard ground Will vaguely feel that they are full of power, And they will stir, and stretch, and look around, Loving the early, chill, half-lighted hour.

Loving the voices in the shadowed trees,

Loving the feet that stir the blossoming grassOh, always we have known such things as these, And knowing, can we love and let them pass?

ESCAPE

BY JAMES RORTY

I

THE POOL

I have come far for this cleansing;

Now I shall not hurry.

The city had tied a great stone

About my neck.

I drop it-so!

Now I can see the mountain.

I leave this soiled bundle of bitterness

In the reeds by the brink.

Now

I stand free and naked to the evening.
Hearken, O Sun,

Staring so hard at me through the balsams—you who fuse

Earth, air and water in a golden calm—

I am not strange;

I too am beautiful;

I have not forgotten

Plunge!

See, O Sun,

The first man laughs among the fishes.

II

THE MOUNTAIN

Will you be quiet, my friends-will you gather close, you who strive so hard to do, and do?

See, I bring you gifts of silence, and cool snows.

I tell you of tall pines, erect and motionless, pointing at the sky.

I deal treacherously with your desires. I bleach your hearts. I confront your troubled faces with the old faces of the rocks.

I give your strained ears only silence, and the zoom of the night hawk.

I take the greed of the merchant, the pride of the