A NEW

POETICAL ANTHOLOGY.

A NEW

POETICAL ANTHOLOGY.

O the student who has not a poetical library at hand to refer to, the following pages will,

in some measure, supply the deficiency. By them he will be enabled to see how the same subjects have been treated by different hands, and how, as has been before observed, a generality becomes special in the hands of a poet."

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The selection is not a mere dictionary of familiar quotations, but some of the best thoughts of the best authors alphabetically arranged. No doubt it could have been considerably extended, but not without swelling this work to a bulk which would have placed it, in price, beyond the means of those for whom it is intended. As it is, nearly five hundred “ gems of thought" have been included, in which many quotations from the standard poets have been blended with the lighter graces of modern verse. In all cases, however, the selections are made from such authors only as have been acknowledged by public and critical approbation.

APRIL.

Sweet April! many a thought

Is wedded unto thee as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.-LONGFELLOW.

APRIL (continued).

I never see

Those dear delights which April still does bring,
But memory's tongue repeats it all to me.
I view her pictures with an anxious eye,
I hear her stories with a pleasing pain:
Youth's withered flowers, alas! ye make me sigh,
To think in me ye'll never bloom again.

JOHN CLARE.

When well-apparel'd April on the heel
Of limping Winter treads.-SHAKSPEARE.

A day in April never came so sweet.

To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

SHAKSPEARE.

Emblem of life, see changeful April sail,
In varying rest, along the shadowy skies;
Now bidding summer's softest zephyrs rise;
Anon, recalling winter's stormy gale,
And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail;
Then, smiling through the tear that dims her eyes
While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes,

Promise of sunshine not so prone to fail.

AUTUMN.

KIRKE WHITE.

May never was the month of love,
For May is full of flowers;
But rather April, wet by kind,
For love is full of showers.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds.
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird,