I stood :

THE BLACKBIRD.

O BLACKBIRD! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot thee round,

I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all

Are thine; the range of lawn and park: The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring,
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that cold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting.

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
That made thee famous once, when young:
Plenty corrupts the melody
And in the sultry garden-squares,

Now thy flute-notes are changed to

LOVE thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought.

True love turn'd round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls.

But pamper not a hasty time,

Nor feed with crude imaginings The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, That every sophister can lime.

Deliver not the tasks of might

To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait for day,

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.

Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

Watch what main - currents draw the years:

Cut Prejudice against the grain: But gentle words are always gain : Regard the weakness of thy peers :

Nor toil for title, place, or touch

Of pension, neither count on praise : It grows to guerdon after-days: Nor deal in watch-words overmuch :

Not clinging to some ancient saw;

Not master'd by some modern term; Not swift nor slow to change, but firm: And in its season bring the law;

That from Discussion's lip may fall With Life, that, working strongly, binds

Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all.

For Nature also, cold and warm, And moist and dry, devising long, Thro' many agents making strong, Matures the individual form.

Meet is it changes should control

Our being, lest we rust in ease.

We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul.

So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that, which flies, And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy.

A saying, hard to shape in act;

For all the past of Time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.

Ev'n now we hear with inward strife A motion toiling in the gloom The Spirit of the years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life.

A slow-develop'd strength awaits

Completion in a painful school; Phantoms of other forms of rule, New Majesties of mighty States

The warders of the growing hour,

But vague in vapor, hard to mark; And round them sea and air are dark With great contrivances of Power.

Of many changes, aptly join'd,

Is bodied forth the second whole.

Regard gradation, lest the soul Of Discord race the rising wind;

A wind to puff your idol-fires,

And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires.

O yet, if Nature's evil star

Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war —

If New and Old, disastrous feud,

Must ever shock, like armed foes, And this be true, till Time shall close, That Principles are rain'd in blood;

Not yet the wise of heart would cease

To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace;

Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay,

Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away —