Oracles from the Poets: A Fanciful Diversion for the Drawing Room

Amusements; Fortune-telling; Quotations, English

39. When _Winter_ nights grow long,
          And winds without blow cold,
        And we sit in a ring round the warm hearth-fire,
          And listen to stories old.

            BARRY CORNWALL.


    40.                               _Spring_;
        When blushing like a bride from Hope's trim bower,
        She leaps, awakened by the pattering shower.

            COLERIDGE.


41. _Autumn_ dark on the mountains; when gray mists rest on the
    hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river
    through the narrow plain. The leaves whirl with the wind, and
    strew the graves of the dead.

            OSSIAN.


    42. When the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
          Fair Venus' train, appear;
        Disclose the long-expected flowers,
          And wake the purple year.
        The attic warbler pours her throat,
        Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
          The untaught harmony of _Spring_;
        While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
        Cool zephyrs, through the clear blue sky,
          Their gather'd fragrance fling.

            GRAY.


    43. When golden _Autumn_ from her open lap
        The fragrant bounty showers.

            SOMERVILLE--_The Chace_.


    44. Dark _Winter_ is a happy time:
        God gives the earth repose, and earth bids man
        Wipe his hot brow; the poet pours his rhyme,
        And mirth awakes.

            ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.


    45.                             When _Spring-tide_ approaches;
        Leaf by leaf is developed, and warm'd by the radiant sunshine,
        Blushes with purple and gold, till at last the perfected blossom
        Opens its odorous chalice, and rocks with its crown to the breeze.

            LONGFELLOW.


    46.           The first day of _May_,
        When the sun is rejoicing alone in heaven,
          The clouds have all hurried away.
        Down in the meadow the blossoms are waking,
        Light on their twigs the young leaves are shaking,
        Round the warm knolls the lambs are a-leaping,
        The colt from his fold o'er the pasture is sweeping,
          And on the bright lake,
          The little waves break,
        For there the cool west is at play.

            J. G. PERCIVAL.


    47. The desolate and dying year,
          Yet lovely in its lifelessness,
        As beauty stretch'd upon the bier,
          In death's clay-cold and dark caress;
        There's loveliness in its decay,
        Which breathes, which lingers on it still.

            J. G. BROOKS.


    48. Pale, rugged _Winter_, bending o'er his tread,
          His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew;
        His eyes a dusky light, congeal'd and dead,
          His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.

            CHATTERTON.


    49. The uncertain glory of an _April_ day,
          Which now shows all the beauty of the skies,
        And by and by a cloud takes all away.

            _Two Gentlemen of Verona._

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Oracles from the Poets: A Fanciful Diversion for the Drawing Room

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