TO THE CROW RETURNING HOME. SAY, weary bird, whose level flight, The wren within her mossy nest To guard their downy young from an inclement sky. Haste, bird, and nurse thy callow* brood, THE GRASSHOPPER. HAPPY insect! what can be Nor does thy luxury destroy. * Callow, naked, unfledged. + Ganymede, (Jove's) cupbearer. The shepherd gladly heareth thee, Thee, country minds with gladness hear, Thee Phoebus* loves and does inspire; To thee of all things upon earth, Dost neither age nor winter know: But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung Thy fill, the flowery leaves among (Voluptuous and wise withal, Epicureant animal), Sated with the summer feast. Cowley. TO THE CUCKOO. O BLITHE new comer! I have heard, O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear; From hill to hill it seems to pass, Though babbling only to the vale Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same whom in my school-boy days Which made me look a thousand ways, * Phœbus (Apollo), the Sun. Epicurean, dainty. To seek thee did I often rove And I can listen to thee yet; That golden time again. O blessed bird! the earth we pace An insubstantial, fairy place, That is fit home for thee. Wordsworth. ODE TO THE CUCKOO. HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove! What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant, with thee The schoolboy wandering through the wood To pull the primrose gay, Starts the new voice of spring to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom An annual guest in other lands, Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year! Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! Logan. THE NIGHTINGALE. FAREWELL, O warbler, till to-morrow eve; Hartley Coleridge. TO A SKYLARK. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated* art. * Unpremeditated, unconsidered, improvised. Higher still, and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singest. In the golden lightening Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Like a star of heaven, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour, With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. |