And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge-
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning

FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT

When Robert Burns, the farmer poet of Scotland, wrote about "honest poverty'' he knew whereof he spoke, for he was both honest and poor. Especially did Burns love the common people, the toilers. The meaning of most of the strange forms of speech used will appear from their resemblance to our modern English.

Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that, our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that

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