POEMS.

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TO THE RURAL MUSE.

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“Smile on my verse, and look the world to love.”

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MUSE of the Fields! oft have I said farewell

To thee, my boon companion, loved so long,

And hung thy sweet harp in the bushy dell,

For abler hands to wake an abler song.

Much did I fear my homage did thee wrong:

Yet, loth to leave, as oft I turned again;

And to its wires mine idle hands would cling,

Torturing it into song. It may be vain;

Yet still I try, ere Fancy droops her wing,

And hopeless Silence comes to numb its ev’ry string. 10

Muse of the Pasture Brooks! on thy calm sea

Of poesy I’ve sailed; and though the will

To speed were greater than my prowess be,

I’ve ventur’d with much fear of usage ill,

Yet more of joy. Though timid be my skill,

As not to dare the depths of mightier streams;

Yet rocks abide in shallow ways, and I

Have much of fear to mingle with my dreams.

Yet, lovely Muse, I still believe thee by,

And think I see thee smile, and so forget I sigh. 20

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Muse of the Cottage Hearth! oft did I tell

My hopes to thee, nor feared to plead in vain;

But felt around my heart thy witching spell,

That bade me as thy worshipper remain:

I did so, and still worship. Oh! again

Smile on my offerings, and so keep them green;

Bedeck my fancies like the clouds of even,

Mingling all hues which thou from heaven dost glean!

To me a portion of thy power be given,

If theme so mean as mine may merit aught of heaven. 30

For thee in youth I culled the simple flower,

That on thy bosom gained a sweeter hue,

And took thy hand along life’s sunny hour,

Meeting the sweetest joys that ever grew;

More friends were needless, and my foes were few.

Though freedom then be deemed as rudeness now,

And what once won thy praise now meet disdain,

Yet the last wreath I braided for thy brow,

Thy smiles did so commend, it made me vain

To weave another one, and hope for praise again. 40

With thee the spirit of departed years

Wakes that sweet voice which time hath rendered dumb;

And freshens, like to spring, loves, hopes, and fears,

That in my bosom found an early home,

Wooing the heart to ecstasy.—I come

To thee, when sick of care, of joy bereft,

Seeking the pleasures that are found in bloom.

O happy hopes, that Time hath only left

Around the haunts where thou didst erst sojourn!

₂ Then smile, sweet Muse, again, and welcome my return. 50

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With thee the raptures of life’s early day

Appear, and all that pleased me when a boy.

Though pains and cares have torn the best away,

And winters creep between us to destroy,

Do thou commend, the recompence is joy:

The tempest of the heart shall soon be calm.

Though sterner Truth against my dreams rebel,

Hope feels success; and all my spirits warm,

To strike with happier mood thy simple shell,

And seize thy mantle’s hem—O! say not fare-the-well. 60

Still, sweet Enchantress! youth’s strong feelings move,

That from thy presence their existence took:—

The innocent idolatry and love,

Paying thee worship in each secret nook,

That fancied friends in tree, and flower, and brook,

Shaped clouds to angels and beheld them smile,

And heard commending tongues in ev’ry wind.

Life’s grosser fancies did these dreams defile,

Yet not entirely root them from the mind;

I think I hear them still, and often look behind. 70

Aye, I have heard thee in the summer wind,

As if commending what I sung to thee;

Aye, I have seen thee on a cloud reclined,

Kindling my fancies into poesy;

I saw thee smile, and took the praise to me.

In beauties, past all beauty, thou wert drest;

I thought the very clouds around thee knelt:

I saw the sun to linger in the west,

Paying thee worship; and as eve did melt

₃ In dews, they seemed thy tears for sorrows I had felt. 80

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Sweeter than flowers on beauty’s bosom hung,

Sweeter, than dreams of happiness above,

Sweeter than themes by lips of beauty sung,

Are the young fancies of a poet’s love,

When round his thoughts thy trancing visions move.

In floating melody no notes may sound,

The world is all forgot and past his care,

While on thy harp thy fingers lightly bound,

As winning him its melody to share;

And heaven itself, with him, where is it then but there? 90

E’en now my heart leaps out from grief, and all

The gloom thrown round by Care’s o’ershading wing;

E’en now those sunny visions to recall,

Like to a bird I quit dull earth and sing:

Life’s tempests swoon to calms on every string.

Ah! Sweet Enchantress, if I do but dream,

If earthly visions have been only mine,

My weakness in thy service woos esteem,

And proves my truth as almost worthy thine:

Surely true worship makes the meanest theme divine. 100

And still, warm courage, calming many a fear,

Heartens my hand once more thy harp to try.

To join the anthem of the minstrel year:

For summer’s music in thy praise is high;

The very winds about thy mantle sigh

Love-melodies; thy minstrel bards to be,

Insects and birds, exerting all their skill,

Float in continued song for mastery;

While in thy haunts loud leaps the little rill,

₄ To kiss thy mantle’s hem; and how can I be still ? 110

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There still I see thee fold thy mantle grey,

To trace the dewy lawn at morn and night;

And there I see thee, in the sunny day,

Withdraw thy veil and shine confest in light;

Burning my fancies with a wild delight,

To win a portion of thy blushing fame.

Though haughty Fancy treat thy power as small,

And Fashion thy simplicity disclaim,

Should but a portion of thy mantle fall

O’er him who woos thy love, ’tis recompense for all. 120

Not with the mighty to thy shrine I come,

In anxious sighs, or self applauding mirth,

On Mount Parnassus as thine heir to roam:

I dare not credit that immortal birth;

But mingling with the lesser ones on earth—

Like as the little lark from off its nest,

Beside the mossy hill awakes in glee,

To seek the morning’s throne a merry guest—

So do I seek thy shrine, if that may be,

To win by new attempts another smile from thee. 130

If without thee ’neath storms, and clouds, and wind,

I’ve roam’d the wood, and field, and meadow lea;

And found no flowers but what the vulgar find,

Nor met one breath of living poesy,

Among such charms where inspirations be;

The fault is mine—and I must bear the lot

Of missing praise to merit thy disdain.

To feel each idle plea though urged, forgot;

I can but sigh—though foolish to complain

₅ O’er hopes so fair begun, to find them end so vain. 140

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Then will it prove presumption thus to dare

To add fresh failings to each faulty song,

Urging thy blessings on an idle prayer,

To sanction silly themes: it will be wrong,

For one so lowly to be heard so long.

Yet, sweet Enchantress, yet a little while

Forego impatience, and from frowns refrain;

The strong are ne’er debarr’d thy cheering smile,

Why should the weak, who need them most, complain

Alone, in solitude, soliciting in vain? 150

But if my efforts on thy harp prove true,

Which bashful youth at first so feared to try;

If aught of nature be in sounds I drew

From hope’s young dreams, and doubt’s uncertainty,

To these late offerings, not without their sigh;

Then on thine altar shall these themes be laid,

And past the deeds of graven brass remain,

Filling a space in time that shall not fade;

And if it be not so—avert disdain,

Till dust shall feel no sting, nor know it toil’d in vain. 160

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SUMMER IMAGES.

NOW swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,

Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;

And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank’d, and crown’d,

A wild and giddy thing,

And Health robust, from every care unbound,

Come on the zephyr’s wing,

And cheer the toiling clown,

Happy as holiday-enjoying face,

Loud tongued, and “merry as a marriage bell,”

Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place; 10

And where the troubled dwell,

Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares:

And from thy sunny spell,

They greet joy unawares.

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,

And mantle laced with gems of garish light,

Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,

And in the world’s despite,

Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles;

If haply so I might 20

₇ Win pleasure from thy smiles.

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Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,

In nightly revels or in city streets;

But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,

That one at leisure meets

In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,

Or fields, where bee-fly greets

The ear with mellow horn.

The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,

Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks; 30

There bees go courting every flower that’s ripe,

On baulks and sunny banks;

And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,

Attempts to give God thanks

In no discordant tune.

The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,

There sings unto himself for joy’s amends,

And drinks the honey dew of solitude.

There Happiness attends

With inbred Joy until the heart o’erflow, 40

Of which the world’s rude friends,

Nought heeding, nothing know.

There the gay river, laughing as it goes,

Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,

And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows

What pleasure there abides,

To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:

Spots, Solitude provides

₈ To muse, and happy be.

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There ruminating ’neath some pleasant bush, 50

On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,

Where I can pillow on the yielding rush;

And, acting as I please,

Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie,

Mark the wind-shaken trees,

And cloud-betravelled sky.

There think me how some barter joy for care,

And waste life’s summer-health in riot rude,

Of nature, nor of nature’s sweets aware.

When passions vain intrude, 60

These, by calm musings, softened are and still;

And the heart’s better mood

Feels sick of doing ill.

There I can live, and at my leisure seek

Joys far from cold restraints—not fearing pride—

Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek

Rude health, so long denied.

Here poor Integrity can sit at ease,

And list self-satisfied

The song of honey-bees; 70

The green lane now I traverse, where it goes

Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies

Rude batter’d finger post, that stooping shows

Where the snug mystery lies;

And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,

Cheers up the short surprise,

₉ And shows a peeping town.

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I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn

Of beauty, feeding on joy’s luscious hours;

The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn, 80

Agape for honey showers;

And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew

Of morning’s early hours,

Like gold yminted new.

And mark by rustic bridge, o’er shallow stream,

Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled,

Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream;

Who now, in gestures wild,

Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall,

Feeling self-gratified, 90

Nor fearing human thrall.

Or thread the sunny valley laced with streams,

Or forests rude, and the o’ershadow’d brims

Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams,

Stretching his listless limbs;

Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long,

Where joy’s wild impulse swims

In one continued song.

I love at early morn, from new mown swath,

To see the startled frog his route pursue; 100

To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path,

His bright sides scatter dew,

The early lark that, from its bustle flies,

To hail his matin new;

₁₀ And watch him to the skies.

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To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,

The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,

With earnest heed, and tremulous intent,

Frail brother of the morn,

That from the tiny bent’s dew-misted leaves 110

Withdraws his timid horn,

And fearful vision weaves.

Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top,

Wont to be first unsealing Morning’s eye,

Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop

Of honey on his thigh;

To see him seek morn’s airy couch to sing,

Until the golden sky

Bepaint his russet wing.

Or sauntering boy by tanning corn to spy, 120

With clapping noise to startle birds away,

And hear him bawl to every passer by

To know the hour of day;

While the uncradled breezes, fresh and strong,

With waking blossoms play,

And breathe Æolian song.

I love the south-west wind, or low or loud,

And not the less when sudden drops of rain

Moisten my glowing cheek from ebon cloud,

Threatening soft showers again, 130

That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds,

Summer’s sweet breath unchain,

₁₁ And wake harmonious sounds.

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Rich music breathes in Summer’s every sound;

And in her harmony of varied greens,

Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around

Much beauty intervenes,

Filling with harmony the ear and eye;

While o’er the mingling scenes

Far spreads the laughing sky. 140

See, how the wind-enamoured aspin leaves

Turn up their silver lining to the sun!

And hark! the rustling noise, that oft deceives,

And makes the sheep-boy run:

The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers,

He thinks the rain’s begun,

And hastes to sheltering bowers.

But now the evening curdles dank and grey,

Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed;

And moping owls, to close the lids of day, 150

On drowsy wing proceed;

While chickering crickets, tremulous and long,

Light’s farewell inly heed,

And give it parting song.

The pranking bat its flighty circlet makes;

The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew;

O’er meadows dew-besprent, the beetle wakes

Inquiries ever new,

Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain,

As wanting to pursue 160

₁₂ His homeward path again.

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Hark! ’tis the melody of distant bells

That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds

By fitful starts, then musically swells

O’er the dim stilly grounds;

While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy

Listens the mellow sounds,

And hums in vacant joy.

Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round

His evening faggot, and with every stride 170

His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound,

Till silly sheep beside

His path start tremulous, and once again

Look back dissatisfied,

And scour the dewy plain.

How sweet the soothing calmness that distills

O’er the heart’s every sense its opiate dews,

In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills!

That softens and subdues,

With gentle Quiet’s bland and sober train, 180

Which dreamy eve renews

In many a mellow strain!

I love to walk the fields, they are to me

A legacy no evil can destroy;

They, like a spell, set every rapture free

That cheer’d me when a boy.

Play—pastime—all Time’s blotting pen conceal’d,

Comes like a new born joy,

₁₃ To greet me in the field.

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For Nature’s objects ever harmonize 190

With emulous Taste, that vulgar deed annoys;

Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize,

And meet vibrating joys

O’er Nature’s pleasing things; nor slighting, deems

Pastimes, the Muse employs,

Vain and obtrusive themes.

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TO * * * *

ON MAY MORNING.

LADY! ’tis thy desire to move

Far from the world’s ungentle throng;

Lady! ’tis thy delight to love

The muses and the sons of song;

Nor Taste alone is theme to praise,

For thou can’st touch the minstrel wire;

And while thou’rt praising others’ lays,

Wake notes that any may admire:

Forgive me if, in friendship’s way,

I offer thee a wreath of May. 10

I greet thee with no gaudy flowers,

For thou art not to fashions prone;

But rather lov’st the woodland bowers,

Where Nature’s beauties charm alone.

The Passion-flower and Cereus fine,

By wealth and pride are reared alone;

Yet flowers more sweet, nor less divine,

Spring’s humbler fields and forests own;

To every hand and bosom given,

₁₄ And nourished by the dews of heaven. 20

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The little Violet’s bloom I weave,

In wreaths I’m fain that thou should’st prize;

Although it comes at winter’s eve,

And often in the tempest dies.

The Primrose, too, a doubtful dream

Of what precarious spring may be.

Yet would I not these types should seem

Aught fancy feigns resembling thee;

And thus belie thy gentle heart,

Where worldly coldness hath no part, 30

Here, too, are boughs of opening May,

And Lilies of the Valley fair;

Yet not with idle praise to say

They’re types of what is sweet and fair.

I cropt one from the pasture hedge,

The others from the forest dell;

And thou hast given the muses pledge,

Such scenes delight thy bosom well.

’Tis not thy person wakes my lays,

Thy heart alone I mean to praise. 40

Forgive me though I flatter not;

Youth’s beauties it was thine to wear,

Have been by riper years forgot,

Though thou hast had a happy share:

And I might praise full many a grace,

That lives and lingers yet behind;

But they like flowers shall change their place;

Not so the beauties of the mind.

So I have Ivy placed between,

₁₅ To prove that worth is ever green. 50

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The little blue Forget-me-not

Comes too on friendship’s gentle plea,

Spring’s messenger in every spot,

Smiling on all—“Remember me!”

But gaudy Tulips find no place

In garlands Friendship would bestow;

Yet here the Cowslip shows its face,

Prized for its sweetness more than show:

Emblems to pomp and pride inclined,

Would but offend a modest mind. 60

I would not on May’s garland fling

The Laurel to the muse and thee,

For fashion’s praise—a common thing

Hath made of that once sacred tree;

And trust me, many laurels wear,

That grew not on Parnassus’ Hill:

Yet dare and speed, ’tis your’s to bear

The muse’s laurels if you will.

Let Flattery think her wreaths divine,

Merit by its own worth will shine. 70

Oh! when I view the glorious host

Of Poets to my country born—

Though sorrow was the lot of most,

And many shared the sneers of scorn,

That now by time and talent tried,

Give life to fame’s eternal sun—

Oh! when I mark the glorious pride

That England from her bards hath won;

E’en I, the meanest of the throng,

₁₆ Warm into ecstasy and song. 80

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The highest gifts each kingdom claims

Are Minstrels, on the Muses’ throne;

And bards who’ve won the richest fames,

’Tis England's noblest pride to own:

Shakspeares and Miltons, they that heir

The fames immortal o’er decay;

And Scotts and Byrons, born to wear

The honours of a later day;

Who join to present past renown,

And sing eternity to crown. 90

These from proud laurels never won

Their fames and honours more divine;

They, like the grand eternal sun,

Confer their glories where they shine.

The laurel were a common bough,

Had it not deck’d the Poet’s crown;

And even weeds, so common now,

Placed there would augur like renown,

Bloom satellites in glory’s way,

Proud as the laurel and the bay. 100

Lady!—and thou hast chosen well,

To give the Muses thy regard;

There, taste from pleasure bears the bell,

There, feeling finds its own reward;

Though Genius often while she makes

Life’s millions happy with her songs,

From Sorrow’s cup her portion takes,

And struggles under bitterest wrongs—

To cares of life and song unknown,

The poet’s fame be thine alone. 110

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THE VANITIES OF LIFE.

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“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

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What are life’s joys and gains,

What pleasures crowd its ways,

That man should take such pains

To seek them all his days?

Sift this untoward strife

On which thy mind is bent—

See if this chaff of life

Be worth the trouble spent.

Is pride thy heart’s desire?

Is power thy climbing aim? 10

Is love thy folly’s fire?

Is wealth thy restless game?—

Pride, power, love, wealth, and all,

Time’s touchstone shall destroy;

And, like base coin, prove all

Vain substitutes for joy.

Dost think thy pride exalts

Thyself in others’ eyes,

And hides thy folly’s faults,

₁₈ Which reason will despise? 20

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Dost strut, and turn, and stride,

Like walking weathercocks?

The shadow, by thy side,

Becomes thy ape, and mocks.

Dost think that power’s disguise

Can make thee mighty seem?

It may in folly’s eyes,

But not in worth’s esteem.

When all that thou canst ask,

And all that she can give, 30

Is but a paltry mask,

Which tyrants wear and live.

Go, let thy fancies range,

And ramble where they may

View power in every change,

And what is its display?—

The country magistrate,

The lowest shade in power,

To rulers of the state?—

The meteors of an hour. 40

View all, and mark the end

Of every proud extreme,

Where flattery turns a friend,

And counterfeits esteem;

Where worth is aped in show,

That doth her name purloin—

As toys of golden glow,

₁₉ Are sold for copper coin.

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Ambition’s haughty nod

With fancies may deceive— 50

Nay, tell thee thou’rt a God;

And wilt thou such believe?—

Go, bid the seas be dry;

Go, hold earth like a ball;

Or throw thy fancies by,

For God can do it all.

Dost thou possess the dower

Of laws, to spare or kill?

Call it not heavenly power,

When but a tyrant’s will. 60

Know what a God will do,

And know thyself a fool;

Nor tyrant-like pursue,

Where he alone should rule.

O put away thy pride,

Or be ashamed of power

That cannot turn aside

The breeze that waves a flower;

Or bid the clouds be still—

Though shadows, they can brave, 70

Thy poor power-mocking will,

Then make not man a slave.

Dost think, when wealth is won,

Thy heart has its desire?

Hold ice up to the sun,

₂₀ And wax before the fire;

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Nor triumph o’er the reign

Which they so soon resign,

In this world’s ways they gain

Insurance safe as thine. 80

Dost think life’s peace secure

In houses and in land?

Go, read the fairy lure—

To twist a cord of sand,

Lodge stones upon the sky,

Hold water in a sieve;

Nor give such tales the lie,

And still thine own believe.

Whoso with riches deals,

And thinks peace bought and sold, 90

Will find them slippery eels,

That slide the firmest hold;

Though sweet as sleep with health

Thy lulling luck may be,

Pride may o’erstride thy wealth,

And check prosperity.

Dost think that beauty’s power

Life’s sweetest pleasure gives?

Go, pluck the summer flower,

And see how long it lives: 100

Behold the rays glide on

Along the summer plain,

Ere thou canst say, “They’re gone!”

₂₁ And measure beauty’s reign.

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Look on the brightest eye,

Nor teach it to be proud,

But view the clearest sky,

And thou shalt find a cloud;

Nor call each face you meet

An angel’s, ’cause it’s fair, 110

But look beneath your feet,

And think of what they are.

Who thinks that love doth live

In beauty’s tempting show,

Shall find his hopes misgive,

And melt in reason’s thaw;

Who thinks that pleasure lies

In every fairy bower,

Shall oft, to his surprise,

Find poison in the flower. 120

Dost lawless passions grasp?—

Judge not thou deal’st in joy;

Its flowers but hide the asp,

Thy revels to destroy.

Who trusts a harlot’s smile,

And by her wiles is led,

Plays with a sword the while,

Hung dropping o’er his head.

Dost doubt my warning song?—

Then doubt the sun gives light; 130

Doubt truth to teach the wrong,

₂₂ And wrong alone as right;

₂₃ ^{……………………………………………………………}

And live as lives the knave,

Intrigue’s deceiving guest;

Be tyrant or be slave,

As suits thy ends the best.

Or pause amid thy toils

For visions won and lost,

And count the fancied spoils,

If ere they quit the cost; 140

And if they still possess,

Thy mind as worthy things;

Plat straws with bedlam Bess,

And call them diamond rings.

Thy folly’s past advice,

Thy heart’s already won,

Thy fall’s above all price,

So go, and be undone:

For all who thus prefer

The seeming great for small, 150

Shall make wine vinegar,

And sweetest honey gall.

Wouldst heed the truths I sing,

To profit wherewithal?

Clip Folly’s wanton wing,

And keep her within call.

I’ve little else to give,

What thou canst easy try;

The lesson how to live,

Is but to learn to die. 160

₂₃

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AUTUMN.

SYREN of sullen moods and fading hues,

Yet haply not incapable of joy,

Sweet Autumn! I thee hail

With welcome all unfeigned;

And oft as morning from her lattice peeps

To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee

To drink the dewy breath

Of fields left fragrant then,

In solitudes, where no frequented paths

But what thy own foot makes betray thine home, 10

Stealing obtrusive there

To meditate thy end:

By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,

With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,

Which woo the winds to play,

And with them dance for joy;

And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,

Where water-lilies spread their oily leaves,

On which, as wont, the fly

Oft battens in the sun; 20

Where leans the mossy willow half way o’er,

On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw

His angle, clear of weeds

₂₄ That crowd the water’s brim;

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Or crispy hills, and hollows scant of sward,

Where step by step the patient lonely boy,

Hath cut rude flights of stairs

To climb their steepy sides;

Then track along their feet, grown hoarse with noise,

The crawling brook, that ekes its weary speed, 30

And struggles through the weeds

With faint and sullen brawl.—

These haunts I long have favoured, more as now

With thee thus wandering, moralizing on;

Stealing glad thoughts from grief,

And happy, though I sigh.

Sweet Vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,

And raiment shadowy of each wind’s embrace,

Fain would I win thine harp

To one accordant theme. 40

Now not inaptly craved, communing thus,

Beneath the curdled arms of this stunt oak,

While pillowed on the grass,

We fondly ruminate

O’er the disordered scenes of woods and fields,

Ploughed lands, thin travelled with half-hungry sheep,

Pastures tracked deep with cows,

Where small birds seek for seed:

Marking the cow-boy that so merry trills

His frequent, unpremeditated song, 50

Wooing the winds to pause,

₂₅ Till echo brawls again;

₂₆ ^{……………………………………………………………}

As on with plashy step, and clouted shoon,

He roves, half indolent and self-employed,

To rob the little birds

Of hips and pendant haws,

And sloes, dim covered as with dewy veils,

And rambling bramble-berries, pulpy and sweet,

Arching their prickly trails

Half o’er the narrow lane: 60

Noting the hedger front with stubborn face

The dank bleak wind, that whistles thinly by

His leathern garb, thorn proof,

And cheek red hot with toil;

While o’er the pleachy lands of mellow brown,

The mower’s stubbling scythe clogs to his foot

The ever eking whisp,

With sharp and sudden jerk,

Till into formal rows the russet shocks

Crowd the blank field to thatch time-weathered barns, 70

And hovels rude repair,

Stript by disturbing winds.

See! from the rustling scythe the haunted hare

Scampers circuitous, with startled ears

Prickt up, then squat, as by

She brushes to the woods,

Where reeded grass, breast-high and undisturbed,

Forms pleasant clumps, through which the soothing winds

Soften her rigid fears,

₂₆ And lull to calm repose. 80

₂₇ ^{……………………………………………………………}

Wild Sorceress! me thy restless mood delights,

More than the stir of summer’s crowded scenes,

Where, jostled in the din,

Joy palled my ear with song;

Heart-sickening for the silence, that is here

Not broken inharmoniously, as now

That lone and vagrant bee

Booms faint with weary chime.

Now filtering winds thin winnow through the woods

In tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath, 90

Some sickly cankered leaf

Let go its hold, and die.

And now the bickering storm, with sudden start,

In flirting fits of anger carps aloud,

Thee urging to thine end,

Sore wept by troubled skies.

And yet, sublime in grief! thy thoughts delight

To show me visions of most gorgeous dyes,

Haply forgetting now

They but prepare thy shroud; 100

Thy pencil dashing its excess of shades,

Improvident of waste, till every bough

Burns with thy mellow touch

Disorderly divine.

Soon must I view thee as a pleasant dream

Droop faintly, and so reckon for thine end,

As sad the winds sink low

₂₇ In dirges for their queen;

₂₈ ^{……………………………………………………………}

While in the moment of their weary pause,

To cheer thy bankrupt pomp, the willing lark 110

Starts from his shielding clod,

Snatching sweet scraps of song.

Thy life is waning now, and Silence tries

To mourn, but meets no sympathy in sounds,

As stooping low she bends,

Forming with leaves thy grave;

To sleep inglorious there mid tangled woods,

Till parched lipped Summer pines in drought away,

Then from thine ivy’d trance

Awake to glories new. 120

_______

THOUGHTS IN A CHURCH-YARD.

AH! happy spot, how still it seems

Where crowds of buried memories sleep;

How quiet Nature o’er them dreams,

’Tis but our troubled thoughts that weep.

Life’s book shuts here—its page is lost

With them, and all its busy claims,

The poor are from its memory crost,

The rich leave nothing but their names.

There rest the weary from their toil;

There lie the troubled, free from care; 10

Who through the strife of life’s turmoil

₂₈ Sought rest, and only found it there.

₂₉ ^{……………………………………………………………}

With none to fear his scornful brow,

There sleeps the master with the slave;

And heedless of all titles now,

Repose the honoured and the brave.

There rest the miser and the heir,

Both careless who their wealth shall reap;

E’en love finds cure for heart-aches here,

And none enjoys a sounder sleep. 20

The fair one far from folly’s freaks,

As quiet as her neighbour seems,

Unconscious now of rosy cheeks,

Without a rival in her dreams.

Strangers alike to joy and strife,

Heedless of all its past affairs.

They’re blotted from the list of life,

And absent from its teazing cares.

Grief, joy, hope, fear, and all their crew

That haunt the memory’s living mind, 30

Ceased, when they could no more pursue,

And left a painless blank behind.

Life’s ignis fatuus light is gone,

No more to lead their hopes astray;

Care’s poisoned cup is drain’d and done,

And all its follies past away.

The bill’s made out, the reck’ning paid,

The book is cross’d, the business done;

On them the last demand is made,

And heaven’s eternal peace is won. 40

₂₉

₃₀ ^{……………………………………………………………}

SONNET.

____

TO NAPOLEON.

THE heroes of the present and the past

Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee:

Thou did’st a span grasp mighty to the last,

And strain for glory when thy die was cast.

That little island, on the Atlantic sea,

Was but a dust-spot in a lake; thy mind

Swept space as shoreless as eternity.

Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age

Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun,

So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind 10

To merits, that had adoration won

In olden times. The world was on thy page

Of victories but a comma. Fame could find

No parallel, thy greatness to presage.

_______

THE NIGHTINGALE’S NEST.

UP this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove,

And list the nightingale—she dwells just here.

Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear

₃₀ The noise might drive her from her home of love;

₃₁ ^{……………………………………………….……………………………}

For here I’ve heard her many a merry year—

At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day,

As though she lived on song. This very spot,

Just where that old-man’s-beard all wildly trails

Rude arbours o’er the road, and stops the way—

And where that child its blue-bell flowers hath got, 10

Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails—

There have I hunted like a very boy,

Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn

To find her nest, and see her feed her young.

And vainly did I many hours employ:

All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn.

And where those crimping fern-leaves ramp among

The hazel’s under boughs, I’ve nestled down,

And watched her while she sung; and her renown

Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird 20

Should have no better dress than russet brown.

Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,

And feathers stand on end, as ’twere with joy,

And mouth wide open to release her heart

Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part

Of summer’s fame she shared, for so to me

Did happy fancies shapen her employ;

But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred,

All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain:

The timid bird had left the hazel bush, 30

And at a distance hid to sing again.

Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,

Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,

Till envy spurred the emulating thrush

To start less wild and scarce inferior songs;

₃₁ For while of half the year Care him bereaves,

₃₂ ^{……………………………………………….……………………………}

To damp the ardour of his speckled breast;

The nightingale to summer’s life belongs,

And naked trees, and winter’s nipping wrongs,

Are strangers to her music and her rest. 40

Her joys are evergreen, her world is wide—

Hark! there she is as usual—let’s be hush—

For in this black-thorn clump, if rightly guest,

Her curious house is hidden. Part aside

These hazel branches in a gentle way,

And stoop right cautious ’neath the rustling boughs,

For we will have another search to day,

And hunt this fern-strewn thorn-clump round and round;

And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows,

We’ll wade right through, it is a likely nook: 50

In such like spots, and often on the ground,

They’ll build, where rude boys never think to look—

Aye, as I live! her secret nest is here,

Upon this white-thorn stump! I’ve searched about

For hours in vain. There! put that bramble by—

Nay, trample on its branches and get near.

How subtle is the bird! she started out,

And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh,

Ere we were past the brambles; and now, near

Her nest, she sudden stops—as choking fear, 60

That might betray her home. So even now

We’ll leave it as we found it; safety’s guard

Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still.

See there! she’s sitting on the old oak bough,

Mute in her fears; our presence doth retard

Her joys, and doubt turns every rapture chill.

₃₂ Sing on, sweet bird! may no worse hap befall

₃₃ ^{……………………………………………….……………………………}

Thy visions, than the fear that now deceives.

We will not plunder music of its dower,

Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall; 70

For melody seems hid in every flower,

That blossoms near thy home. These harebells all

Seem bowing with the beautiful in song;

And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves,

Seems blushing of the singing it has heard.

How curious is the nest; no other bird

Uses such loose materials, or weaves

Its dwelling in such spots; dead oaken leaves.

Are placed without, and velvet moss within,

And little scraps of grass, and, scant and spare, 80

What scarcely seem materials, down and hair;

For from men’s haunts she nothing seems to win.

Yet Nature is the builder, and contrives

Homes for her children’s comfort, even here;

Where Solitude’s disciples spend their lives

Unseen, save when a wanderer passes near

That loves such pleasant places. Deep adown,

The nest is made a hermit’s mossy cell.

Snug lie her curious eggs in number five,

Of deadened green, or rather olive brown; 90

And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well.

So here we’ll leave them, still unknown to wrong,

As the old woodland’s legacy of song.

₃₃

₃₄ ^{……………………………………………….……………………………}

THE ETERNITY OF NATURE.

LEAVES, from eternity, are simple things

To the world’s gaze—where, lo! a spirit clings

Sublime and lasting. Trampled under foot,

The daisy lives, and strikes its little root

Into the lap of time: centuries may come,

And pass away into the silent tomb,

And still the child, hid in the womb of time,

Shall smile and pluck them, when this simple rhyme

Shall be forgotten, like a churchyard stone,

Or lingering lie unnoticed and alone. 10

When eighteen hundred years, our common date,

Grow many thousands in their marching state,

Aye, still the child, with pleasure in his eye,

Shall cry—the daisy! a familiar cry—

And run to pluck it, in the self-same state,

As when Time found it in his infant date;

And, like a child himself, when all was new,

Might smile with wonder, and take notice too.

Its little golden bosom, frilled with snow,

Might win e’en Eve to stoop adown, and show 20

Her partner, Adam, in the silky grass,

This little gem, that smiled where pleasure was,

And loving Eve, from Eden followed ill,

And bloomed with sorrow, and lives smiling still.

As once in Eden under heaven’s breath,

₃₄ So now on earth, and on the lap of death

₃₅ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

It smiles for ever.—Cowslips of gold bloom,

That in the pasture and the meadow come,

Shall come when kings and empires fade and die;

And in the closes, as Time’s partners, lie 30

As fresh two thousand years to come as now,

With those five crimson spots upon their brow.

The little brooks that hum a simple lay,

In green unnoticed spots, from praise away,

Shall sing, when poets in time’s darkness hid,

Resemble memory in a pyramid,

Forgetting, yet not all forgot though lost,

Like a thread’s end in ravelled windings crost.

The little humble-bee shall hum as long

As nightingales, for Time protects the song; 40

And Nature is their soul, to whom all clings,

Of fair or beautiful in lasting things.

The little robin in the quiet glen,

Hidden from fame and all the strife of men,

Sings unto Time a pastoral, and gives

A music that lives on and ever lives.

Spring and autumnal years shall bloom, and fade,

Longer than songs that poets ever made.

Think ye not these, Time’s playthings, pass proud skill?

Time loves them like a child, and ever will; 50

And so I seek them in each bushy spot,

And sing with them, when all else notice not:

And feel the music of their mirth agree

With that sooth quiet that bestirs in me.

And if I touch aright that quiet tone—

That soothing truth that shadows forth their own,

Then many a year to come, in after-days,

₃₅ Shall still find hearts to love my quiet lays.

₃₆ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Thus cheering mirth with thoughts sung not for fame,

But for the joy that with their utterance came, 60

That inward breath of rapture urged not loud,

—Birds, singing lone, fly silent past a crowd—

In these same pastoral spots, which childish time

Makes dear to me, I wander out and rhyme;

What hour the dewy morning’s infancy

Hangs on each blade of grass and every tree,

And sprents the red thighs of the humble bee,

Who ’gins betimes unwearied minstrelsy;

Who breakfasts, dines, and most divinely sups,

With every flower save golden buttercups,— 70

On whose proud bosoms he will never go,

But passes by with scarcely “how do ye do,”

Since in their showy, shining, gaudy cells,

Haply the summer’s honey never dwells.

All Nature’s ways are mysteries! Endless Youth

Lives in them all, unchangeable as Truth.

With the odd number five, her curious laws

Play many freaks, nor once mistake the cause;

For in the cowslip-pips this very day

Five spots appear, which Time wears not away, 80

Nor once mistakes in counting—look within

Each pip, and five, nor more nor less are seen.

So trailing bindweed, with its pinky cup,

Five leaves of paler hue go streaking up.

And many a bird too keeps the rule alive,

Laying five eggs, nor more nor less than five.

But flowers, how many own that mystic power;

With five leaves ever making up the flower!

The five-leaved grass, mantling its golden cup

₃₆ Of flowers—five leaves make all for which I stoop. 90

₃₇ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

The briony, in the hedge, that now adorns

The tree to which it clings, and now the thorns,

Owns five-starred pointed leaves of dingy white;

Count which I will, all make the number right.

The spreading goose-grass, trailing all abroad

In leaves of silver green about the road—

Five leaves make every blossom all along.

I stoop for many, none are counted wrong.

’Tis Nature’s wonder, and her Maker’s will,

Who bade Earth be, and Order owns him still, 100

As that superior Power, who keeps the key

Of wisdom, and of might, through all eternity.

_______

MARY LEE.

I HAVE traced the valleys fair

In May morning’s dewy air,

My bonny Mary Lee!

Wilt thou deign the wreath to wear,

Gathered all for thee?

They are not flowers of pride,

For they graced the dingle-side;

Yet they grew in heaven’s smile,

My gentle Mary Lee!

Can they fear thy frowns the while, 10

₃₇ Though offered by me?

₃₈ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Here’s the lily of the vale,

That perfumed the morning gale,

My fairy Mary Lee!

All so spotless and so pale,

Like thine own purity.

And, might I make it known,

’Tis an emblem of my own

Love—if I dare so name

My esteem for thee. 20

Surely flowers can bear no blame,

My bonny Mary Lee!

Here’s the violet’s modest blue,

That ’neath hawthorns hides from view,

My gentle Mary Lee,

Would show whose heart is true,

While it thinks of thee.

While they choose each lowly spot,

The sun disdains them not;

I’m as lowly too indeed, 30

My charming Mary Lee;

So I’ve brought the flowers to plead,

And win a smile from thee.

Here’s a wild rose just in bud;

Spring’s beauty in its hood,

My bonny Mary Lee!

’Tis the first in all the wood

I could find for thee.

Though a blush is scarcely seen,

₃₈ Yet it hides its worth within, 40

₃₉ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Like my love; for I’ve no power,

My angel, Mary Lee,

To speak, unless the flower

Can make excuse for me.

Though they deck no princely halls,

In bouquets for glittering balls,

My gentle Mary Lee!

Richer hues than painted walls

Will make them dear to thee;

For the blue and laughing sky 50

Spreads a grander canopy,

Than all wealth’s golden skill,

My charming Mary Lee!

Love would make them dearer still,

That offers them to thee.

My wreathed flowers are few,

Yet no fairer drink the dew,

My bonny Mary Lee!

They may seem as trifles too—

Not I hope to thee. 60

Some may boast a richer prize

Under pride and wealth’s disguise;

None a fonder offering bore

Than this of mine to thee;

And can true love wish for more?

Surely not, Mary Lee!

₃₉

₄₀ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

ON AN INFANT KILLED BY LIGHTNING.

AS fearless as a cherub’s rest,

Now safe above the cloud,

A babe lay on its mother’s breast

When thunders roared aloud.

It started not to hear the crash,

But held its little hand

Up, at the lightning’s fearful flash,

To catch the burning brand.

The tender mother stayed her breath

In more than grief awhile, 10

To think the thing that brought its death

Should cause her babe to smile.

Aye, it did smile a heavenly smile

To see the lightning play;

Well might she shriek when it turned pale,

And yet it smiled in clay.

O woman! the dread storm was given

To be to each a friend;

It took thy infant pure to heaven,

Left thee impure to mend. 20

Thus Providence will oft appear

From God’s own mouth to preach:

Ah! would we were as prone to hear

As Mercy is to teach!

₄₀

₄₁ ^{……………………………………………….…………………………}

ON SEEING A SKULL ON COWPER GREEN.

ONE morn I wandered forth ’neath spirits high

A mood that morning’s piercing breath instils;

And like my shade, my mind in ecstacy

Stretched as a giant o’er the pasture-hills.

I mused on reasoning man’s exalted sway

O’er the brute world—pride made my feelings brave;

Creation’s lord he seemed to me that day;

I felt as if all nature was his slave.

But Time’s glass soon did mock my visioned might:

I saw, and shrank an insect at the sight. 10

For as I wandered by a quarry’s side,

Where an old hoary weather-beaten swain

Was delving sand—in life’s rude troubles tried—

An humble pittance as he strove to gain,

He stopt his toil, and with a feeble hand

Pointed to where a human skull lay bare,

Commingled with the refuse of the land,

Fallen from life and pride to moulder there.

I looked upon the relic with deep awe,

₄₁ While Silence seemed to question what I saw. 20

₄₂ ^{………………………………………………….…….…………………}

What wert thou upon earth? perhaps a King,

For such the relics of earth’s best renown.

Thou pompous shadow! thou proud, trifling thing!

Bare is the brow that triumphed ’neath a crown.

By rank forsaken, stript of pride’s attire,

Death’s sad reality fate only claims;

All else like shadows bidden to expire.

Time keeps the wreck, to mock at earthly fames;

To show vain Glory, in its golden birth,

Of what poor value it is held by Death. 30

Wert thou a Tyrant, that disdained, though clay,

The laws of God and man, and with vain power,

For earth’s vain glories threw the heavens away?

How art thou fallen at this lonely hour!

Thy vengeance, that did like the thunder sear,

Ordaining hosts of murders with a breath,

Hath vanished; and the slave forgets his fear

Beneath the banner of that tyrant, Death.

Even the little ant now, undismayed,

Creeps o’er thy skull, and doth not feel afraid. 40

A Warrior thou? who sped in victory’s ways,

As over-bearing as a mighty wind?

Ah, little thought thy pride, that Victory’s praise

So soon would leave her hero’s fame behind.

By war and all its havoc undeterred,

Thy Courage, withering in its mad career,

Bowed before Death, tame as a broken sword;

And ah! how silent doth it harbour here!

Its fame all sunk to nothingness away,

₄₂ As showers by night wash out the steps of day. 50

₄₃ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Wert thou a Lover?— ah! what else so warm

As lovers’ thoughts, that lead the heart to bliss!

How sad the change, o’ertaken in Death’s storm,

Cold, wrecked, and stranded in a place like this!

Love, that will nestle ’neath the eagle’s wing,

And find a dwelling in the lion’s den,

Hath long forsaken thee, thou lonely thing

Of mystery, and knows thee not again.

Warm hopes, gay thoughts, rapt joys, and fond desires,

Have lost their home; Death hath put out their fires. 60

Wert thou a Poet, who in fancy’s dream

Saw Immortality throw by her veil,

And all thy labours in Fame’s temple gleam

In the proud glory of an after-tale?

If so, how cheated thy ambition died;

How vain the hopes the muse’s visions gave!

Death with Eternity scarce took one stride,

Ere thou wert left forgotten in the grave;—

Chilled all thy powers, with thoughts o’erflowing full,

And nought left extant but this empty skull. 70

Wert thou of poor descent, and like to me,

A toiling worm, earning life’s daily bread?—

If so, Death made thee rich, as well as free,

And left thee equal with the noblest dead.

Emperors and kings, no more by flattery fed,

Poor as thou art, their condescension spares

Even to thee a portion of their bed,

And thine’s as soft a pillow now as theirs!

O who could grudge the Mighty’s guest to be,

₄₃ Where Kings grow kind, and share their pomp with thee! 80

₄₄ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

In vain I question:—nought will answer me

Of what thou wert; yet know I that thou art

A faithful portrait of what Life shall be :

Thus much thy mystic vision doth impart.

King, Tyrant, Warrior, Lover, Bard, and all,

Shall into nothing every name resign,

And Fame’s proud scroll, at last, shall be the pall

To hide their history, as Oblivion thine;

While Virtue’s deeds shall longest live, and be

A wreath to girdle vast Eternity! 90

_______

TO P****

FAIR was thy bloom, when first I met

Thy summer’s maiden-blossom;

And thou art fair and lovely yet,

And dearer to my bosom.

O thou wert once a wilding flower,

All garden flowers excelling,

And still I bless the happy hour

That led me to thy dwelling.

Though nursed by field, and brook, and wood,

And wild in every feature, 10

Spring ne’er unsealed a fairer bud,

₄₄ Nor found a blossom sweeter.

₄₅ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Of all the flowers the Spring hath met,

And it has met with many,

Thou art to me the fairest yet,

And loveliest, of any.

Though ripening summers round thee bring

Buds to thy swelling bosom,

That wait the cheering smiles of spring

To ripen into blossom; 20

These buds shall added blessings be,

To make our loves sincerer:

For as their flowers resemble thee,

They’ll make thy memory dearer.

And though thy bloom shall pass away,

By winter overtaken,

Thoughts of the past will charms display,

And many joys awaken.

When time shall every sweet remove,

And blight thee on my bosom— 30

Let beauty fade—to me, my love,

Thou’lt ne’er be out of blossom!

_______

THE SHEPHERD’S SONG.

MARY! let us Love employ,

Among the happy smiles of May;

And let us bind the wings of Joy,

₄₅ And keep him captive for a day.

₄₆ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Nature in love doth now disclose

Her flowers, in full ripe smiles to thee;

’Twill be too late to seek the rose

When autumn-leaves have left the tree:

So let us wreathe Joy’s brows to-day,

To-morrow he may speed away. 10

While on this meadow-bank we sit,

Mark thou the sights that might thee move;

Hear how the winds, in amorous fit,

Woo things inanimate to love.

The bulrush bows, in graceful art,

To kiss the river’s lesser weeds;

And flags, in many a merry start,

Rustling whisper to the reeds:

Shall things inanimate agree

To love, unmoving thee and me? 20

See yonder sky-lark, from the corn,

Rises to sing his wedding-lay;

For he was wed at early morn,

And twilight gave the bride away.

The church above the trees doth climb,

Love! promise, and we’ll soon be there;

’Tis best to borrow haste from Time,

If Time has present joys to spare;

Nor leave Love’s lot until the Morrow,

Who oft pays backward debts in sorrow. 30

₄₆

₄₇ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

EMMONSALE’S HEATH.

IN thy wild garb of other times

I find thee lingering still;

Furze o’er each lazy summit climbs,

At nature’s easy will.

Grasses that never knew a scythe,

Wave all the summer long;

And wild weed blossoms waken blythe,

That ploughmen never wrong.

Stern Industry, with stubborn toil,

And wants unsatisfied, 10

Still leaves untouched thy maiden soil,

In its unsullied pride.

The birds still find their summer shades

To build their nests again,

And the poor hare its rushy glade,

To hide from savage men.

Nature its family protects

In thy security,

And blooms, which love what man neglects,

₄₇ Find peaceful homes in thee. 20

₄₈ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

The wild rose Scents the summer air,

And woodbines weave in bowers,

To glad the swain sojourning there,

And maidens gathering flowers.

Creation’s steps one wandering meets

Untouched by those of man:

Things seem the same in such retreats

As when the world began.

Furze, ling, and brake, all mingling free,

And grass for ever green— 30

All seem the same old things to be

As they have ever been.

The brook o’er such neglected ground,

One’s weariness to soothe,

Still wildly winds its lawless bound,

And chafes the pebble smooth;

Crooked and rude, as when at first

Its waters learned to stray,

And, from their mossy fountain burst,

It washed itself a way. 40

I’ve often met with places rude,

Nor failed their sweets to share,

But passed an hour with solitude,

₄₈ And left my blessing there.

₄₉ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

He that can meet the morning wind,

And o’er such places roam,

Nor leave a lingering wish behind

To make their peace his home—

His heart is dead to quiet hours,

Nor love his mind employs, 50

Nor poesy shares with him its flowers,

Nor solitude its joys.

I’ve stretched my boyish walks to thee

When May-day’s paths were dry,

When leaves had nearly hid each tree,

And grass greened ankle high;

And mused the sunny hours away,

And thought of little things

That children mutter o’er their play,

When fancy tries its wings. 60

Joy nursed me in her happy mood,

And all life’s little crowd

That haunt the valley, field, and wood,

Would sing their joys aloud.

I thought how kind that mighty Power

Must in his splendour be,

Who spread around my boyish hour

₄₉ Such gleams of harmony.

₅₀ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

Who did with joyous rapture fill

The low as high degree, 70

And made the ants around the hill

Seem full as blest as me.

Hope’s sun is seen of every eye;

The halo that it gives,

In nature’s wide and common sky,

Cheers every thing that lives.

______

A WORLD FOR LOVE.

OH, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;

Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;

Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,

That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.

And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,

How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;

Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade

₅₀ Had e’er been bent by Trouble’s feet, and Love thy pillow made.

₅₁ ^{……………………………………………….………………………………….…………………}

For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,

And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty’s happy clime; 10

And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,

And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.

And there to make a cot unknown to any care and pain,

And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain—

Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,

Oh who could wish a sweeter home, or better place to find?

Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!

Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!

The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see

Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee. 20

₅₁

₅₂ ^{……………………………………………….………………………………….…………………}

SONG.

O the voice of woman’s love!

What a bosom-stirring word!

Was a sweeter ever uttered,

Was a dearer ever heard,

Than woman’s love?

How it melts upon the ear,

How it nourishes the heart!

Cold, ah! cold, must his appear,

Who hath never shared a part

Of woman’s love. 10

’Tis pleasure to the mourner,

’Tis freedom to the thrall;

The pilgrimage of many,

And the resting place of all,

Is woman’s love.

’Tis the gem of beauty’s birth,

It competes with joys above

What were angels upon earth,

If without a woman’s love—

A woman’s love? 20

₅₂

₅₃ ^{……………………………………………….…………………}

BALLAD.

WHERE is the heart thou once hast won,

Can cease to care about thee?

Where is the eye thou’st smiled upon

Can look for joy without thee?

Lorn is the lot one heart hath met,

That’s lost to thy caressing;

Cold is the hope that loves thee yet,

Now thou art past possessing—

Fare thee well.

We met, we loved, we’ve met the last, 10

The farewell word is spoken;

O Mary, can’st thou feel the past,

And keep thy heart unbroken?

To think how warm we loved, and how

Those hopes should blossom never;

To think how we are parted now,

And parted, O! for ever—

Fare thee well.

Thou wert the first my heart to win,

Thou art the last to wear it; 20

And though another claims a kin,

₅₃ Thou must be one to share it.

₅₄ ^{……………………………………………….………………………………}

O had we known when hopes were sweet,

That hopes would once be thwarted,

That we should part, no more to meet,

How sadly we had parted!

Fare thee well.

________

LOVE.

LOVE, though it is not chill and cold,

But burning like eternal fire,

Is yet not of approaches bold,

Which gay dramatic tastes admire.

Oh! timid love, more fond than free,

In daring song is ill pourtrayed,

Where, as in war, the devotee

By valour wins each captive maid;—

Where hearts are prest to hearts in glee,

As they could tell each other’s mind; 10

Where ruby lips are kissed as free,

As flowers are by the summer wind.

No! gentle love, that timid dream,

With hopes and fears at foil and play,

Works like a skiff against the stream,

₅₄ And thinking most finds least to say.

₅₅ ^{……………………………………………….…………………………………}

It lives in blushes and in sighs,

In hopes for which no words are found;

Thoughts dare not speak but in the eyes,

The tongue is left without a sound. 20

The pert and forward things that dare

Their talk in every maiden’s ear,

Feel no more than their shadows there—

Mere things of form, with nought of fear.

True passion, that so burns to plead,

Is timid as the dove’s disguise;

’Tis for the murder-aiming gleed

To dart at every thing that flies.

True love, it is no daring bird,

But like the little timid wren, 30

That in the new-leaved thorns of spring

Shrinks farther from the sight of men.

The idol of his musing mind,

The worship of his lonely hour,

Love woos her in the summer wind,

And tells her name to every flower;

But in her sight, no open word

Escapes, his fondness to declare;

The sighs, by beauty’s magic stirred,

Are all that speak his passion there. 40

₅₅

₅₆ ^{………………….………………………………….…………………}

BALLAD.

THE spring returns, the pewet screams

Loud welcomes to the dawning,

Though harsh and ill as now it seems,

’Twas music last May morning.

The grass so green—the daisy gay

Wakes no joy in my bosom,

Although the garland, last May day,

Wore not a finer blossom.

For by this bridge my Mary sat,

And praised the screaming plover 10

As first to hail the day, when I

Confessed myself her lover;

And at that moment stooping down

I plucked a daisy blossom,

Which smilingly she called her own

May-garland, for her bosom.

And in her breast she hid it there,

As true love’s happy omen;

Gold had not claimed a safer care—

I thought Love’s name was Woman. 20

I claimed a kiss, she laughed away,

I sweetly sold the blossom,

I thought myself a king that day,

₅₆ My throne was Beauty’s bosom.

₅₇ ^{……………………………………………….………………}

I little thought an evil hour

Was bringing clouds around me,

And, least of all, that little flower

Would turn a thorn to wound me.

She showed me, after many days,

Though withered, how she prized it; 30

Then she inclined to wealthy praise,

And my poor love—despised it.

Aloud the whirring pewet screams,

The daisy blooms as gaily,

But where is Mary?—Absence seems

To ask that question daily.

No where on earth where joy can be,

To glad me with her pleasure;

Another name she owns—to me

She is as stolen treasure. 40

When lovers part, the longest mile

Leaves hope of some returning;

Though mine’s close by, no hopes the while

Within my heart are burning.

One hour would bring me to her door;

Yet sad and lonely hearted,

If seas between us both should roar,

We were not farther parted.

Though I could reach her with my hand,

Ere sun the earth goes under; 50

Her heart from mine—the sea and land

₅₇ Are not more wide asunder.

₅₈ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

The wind and clouds, now here, now there,

Hold not such strange dominion

As woman’s cold perverted will,

And soon estranged opinion.

________

DECAY.

O POESY is on the wane,

For Fancy’s visions all unfitting;

I hardly know her face again,

Nature herself seems on the flitting.

The fields grow old and common things,

The grass, the sky, the winds a-blowing;

And spots, where still a beauty clings,

Are sighing “going! all a-going!”

O Poesy is on the wane,

I hardly know her face again. 10

The bank with brambles overspread,

And little molehills round about it,

Was more to me than laurel shades,

With paths of gravel finely clouted;

And streaking here and streaking there,

Through shaven grass and many a border,

With rutty lanes had no compare,

And heaths were in a richer order.

But Poesy is on the wane,

₅₈ I hardly know her face again. 20

₅₉ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

I sat beside the pasture stream,

When Beauty’s self was sitting by,

The fields did more than Eden seem,

Nor could I tell the reason why.

I often drank when not a-dry,

To pledge her health in draughts divine;

Smiles made it nectar from the sky,

Love turned e’en water into wine.

O Poesy is on the wane,

I cannot find her face again. 30

The sun those mornings used to find,

Its clouds were other-country mountains,

And heaven looked downward on the mind,

Like groves, and rocks, and mottled fountains.

Those heavens are gone, the mountains grey

Turned mist—the sun, a homeless ranger,

Pursues alone his naked way,

Unnoticed like a very stranger.

O Poesy is on the wane,

Nor love nor joy is mine again. 40

Love’s sun went down without a frown,

For very joy it used to grieve us;

I often think the West is gone,

Ah, cruel Time, to undeceive us.

The stream it is a common stream,

Where we on Sundays used to ramble,

The sky hangs o’er a broken dream,

The bramble’s dwindled to a bramble!

O Poesy is on the wane,

₅₉ I cannot find her haunts again. 50

₆₀ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

Mere withered stalks and fading trees,

And pastures spread with hills and rushes,

Are all my fading vision sees;

Gone, gone are rapture’s flooding gushes!

When mushrooms they were fairy bowers,

Their marble pillars over-swelling,

And Danger paused to pluck the flowers,

That in their swarthy rings were dwelling.

Yes, Poesy is on the wane,

Nor joy, nor fear is mine again. 60

Aye, Poesy hath passed away,

And Fancy’s visions undeceive us;

The night hath ta’en the place of day,

And why should passing shadows grieve us?

I thought the flowers upon the hill

Were flowers from Adam’s open gardens;

But I have had my summer thrills,

And I have had my heart’s rewardings.

So Poesy is on the wane,

I hardly know her face again. 70

And Friendship it hath burned away,

Like to a very ember cooling,

A make-believe on April day,

That sent the simple heart a fooling;

Mere jesting in an earnest way,

Deceiving on and still deceiving;

And Hope is but a fancy-play,

And Joy the art of true believing;

For Poesy is on the wane,

O could I feel her faith again! 80

₆₀

₆₁ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

NATURE’S HYMN TO THE DEITY.

ALL Nature owns, with one accord,

The great and universal Lord:

The Sun proclaims him through the day—

The Moon, when daylight drops away;

The very Darkness smiles to wear

The stars that show us God is there!

On moonlight seas soft gleams the sky,

And “God is with us!” waves reply.

Winds breathe, “From God’s abode we come;”

Storms louder call, “God is our home!” 10

And Thunders, with yet louder call,

Sound Him as mightiest over all;

Till Earth, right loth the proof to miss,

Echoes triumphantly “He is!”

And Air and Ocean make reply,

“God reigns on earth, in air, and sky!”

All Nature owns with one accord

The great and universal Lord:

Insect, and Bird, and Tree, and Flower—

Are witnesses of every hour, 20

Respondent to the common cry,

For “God is with us!” these reply.

The first link in the mighty plan

Is mute—All Nature upbraids Man!

₆₀

₆₁ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

IMPULSES OF SPRING.

DAY burnishes the distant hills,

And clouds blush far away;

Life’s heart with Nature’s rapture thrills

To hail this glorious day.

The morning falls in dizzy light

On mountain tops and towers,

But speeds with soft and gentle flight

Among these valley-flowers.

There’s music in the waking woods,

There’s glory in the air; 10

Birds, in their merry summer moods,

Now rant and revel there:

Joy wakes, and wantons all around,

Love laughs in every call,

Music in many hearts is found,

And Poesy breathes in all.

The merry new-come nightingale

Woos Night’s dun hours along,

Till Daylight at the sound turns pale,

And hastes to share the song. 20

A waste of sunny flowers is seen,

And incense fills the air;

No sunless place is found too mean

₆₂ Spring’s blushing gems to wear.

₆₃ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

The horse-blob by the water-mill

Blooms in the foaming dam,

And pilewort flares around the hill,

Beside the sleeping lamb.

Spring is the happy breathing time

For young Love’s stolen joys; 30

Spring is the Poet’s luscious prime—

He revels in the noise

Of waking insects humming round,

And birds upon the wing,

And all the gushing soul of sound

That echoes of the Spring;

For in their joys his own are met,

Though tears stand in his eye;

In their gay mirth he half forgets

He ever knew to sigh. 40

He feeds on Spring’s precarious boon,

A being of her race,

Where light, and shade, and shower, and sun,

Are ever changing place.

To-day he buds, and glows to meet

To-morrow’s promised shower,

Then crushed by Care’s intruding feet,

He fades—a broken flower!

His hopes, they change like summer clouds,

And fairy phantasies; 50

His pleasures, wrapt in gayer shrouds,

₆₃ Are sorrows in disguise:

₆₄ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

The sweetest smiles his heart can find

Possess his tears as well;

His highest pleasures leave behind

Their heart-ache, and farewell!

His are the fading “joys of grief;”

Care grows his favoured guest:

And Sorrow gives his heart relief,

Because it knows him best. 60

The sweetest flower on pleasure’s path

Will bloom on sorrow’s grave,

And earthly joys, and earthly mirth,

Their share of grief shall have.

True Poesy owns a haunted mind,

A thirst-enduring flame,

Burning the soul to leave behind

The memory of a name.

Though life be reckoned sweetly sold

For toil so ill repaid— 70

The marble epitaph, how cold!

Although with gold inlaid.

While the rude clown of thoughtless clay,

In feelings unrefined,

Lives out life’s cloudless holiday,

With nothing on his mind;—

Then sound as ever king hath slept,

On earth’s green lap he lies;

While Beauty’s tears, so sweetly wept,

₆₄ And Friendship’s warmest sighs 80

₆₅ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

Are left upon his lowly grave,

And live his only fame,

While frowning Envy never gave

One insult to his name;

Yet who would from their cares be free

For such unconscious bliss?

A living blank in life to be,

Pain’s sympathy to miss?

To meet enthusiastic May

As but dull Winter’s hours, 90

And primrose pale, and daisy gay,

As white and yellow flowers,

And not as friends in our esteem,

To cheer dull life’s sojourn;—

Let me, throughout its cheating dream,

Much rather feel and mourn

The bliss and grief, though past control,

That with extremes inflame;

Feelings, blood-rushing through the soul,

Not uttered in a name; 100

Where no words live, to free the mind

From hidden hopes or fears,

Where all the utterance can find

Are gushing smiles and tears.

Yet woo I not that burning flame,

Enkindling ecstasy,

Blazing in dreams to win a name

₆₅ From Fame’s eternity.

₆₆ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

Fame’s yearning breath breeds not my sigh,

Nor eats my heart away, 110

Burning life’s every channel dry

To triumph o’er decay.

Yet with the minstrelsy on earth

I too would love the lyre,

For heaven ne’er gave the meanest birth,

To quench that holy fire:

It owns the muse’s sweetest smiles,

And scatters life around;

Grief, sick with Hope’s heart-broken toils,

Grows happy at the sound. 120

The lyre is pleasure’s blest abode,

And round it angels throng;

The lyre is as the voice of God,

The prophets spake in song.

And as the sun this day brings forth

Creations every hour,

Care’s wreath warms at the muse’s mirth,

And blushes into flower.

₆₆

₆₇ ^{…………………………………………….…………………}

PASTORAL FANCIES.

SWEET pastime here my mind so entertains,

Abiding pleasaunce, and heart-feeding joys,

To meet this blithsome day these painted plains,

These singing maids, and chubby laughing boys,

Which hay-time and the summer here employs,—

My rod and line doth all neglected lie;

A higher joy my former sport destroys:

Nature this day doth bait the hook, and I

The glad fish am, that’s to be caught thereby.

This silken grass, these pleasant flowers in bloom, 10

Among these tasty molehills that do lie

Like summer cushions, for all guests that come;

Those little feathered folk, that sing and fly

Above these trees, in that so gentle sky,

Where not a cloud dares soil its heavenly light;

And this smooth river softly grieving bye—

All fill mine eyes with so divine a sight,

₆₇ As makes me sigh that it should e’er be night.

₆₈ ^{………………………………………………………….…………………}

In sooth, methinks the choice I most should prize

Were in these meadows of delight to dwell, 20

To share the joyaunce heaven elsewhere denies,

The calmness that doth relish passing well,

The quiet conscience, that aye bears the bell,

And happy musing Nature would supply,

Leaving no room for troubles to rebel:

Here would I think all day, at night would lie,

The hay my bed, my coverlid the sky.

So would I live, as nature might command,

Taking with Providence my wholesome meals;

Plucking the savory peascod from the land, 30

Where rustic lad oft dainty dinner steals.

For drink, I’d hie me where the moss conceals

The little spring so chary from the sun,

Then lie, and listen to the merry peals

Of distant bells—all other noises shun;

Then court the Muses till the day be done.

Here would high joys my lowly choice requite,

For garden plot, I’d choose this flow’ry lea;

Here I in culling nosegays would delight,

The lambtoe tuft, the paler culverkey: 40

The cricket’s mirth were talk enough for me,

When talk I needed; and when warmed to pray,

The little birds my choristers should be,

Who wear one suit for worship and for play,

₆₈ And make the whole year long one sabbath-day.

₆₉ ^{………………………………………………………….…………………}

A thymy hill should be my cushioned seat;

An aged thorn, with wild hops intertwined,

My bower, where I from noontide might retreat;

A hollow oak would shield me from the wind,

Or, as might hap, I better shed might find 50

In gentle spot, where fewer paths intrude,

The hut of shepherd swain, with rushes lined:

There would I tenant be to Solitude,

Seeking life’s gentlest joys, to shun the rude.

Bidding a long farewell to every trouble,

The envy and the hate of evil men;

Feeling cares lessen, happiness redouble,

And all I lost as if ’twere found again.

Vain life unseen; the past alone known then:

No worldly intercourse my mind should have, 60

To lure me backward to its crowded den;

Here would I live and die, and only crave

The home I chose might also be my grave.

________

THE AUTUMN ROBIN.

SWEET little bird in russet coat,

The livery of the closing year!

I love thy lonely plaintive note,

₆₉ And tiny whispering song to hear.

₇₀ ^{………………………………………………………….}

While on the stile, or garden seat,

I sit to watch the falling leaves,

The song thy little joys repeat,

My loneliness relieves.

And many are the lonely minds

That hear, and welcome thee anew; 10

Not Taste alone, but humble hinds,

Delight to praise, and love thee too.

The veriest clown, beside his cart,

Turns from his song with many a smile,

To see thee from the hedgerow start,

To sing upon the stile.

The shepherd on the fallen tree

Drops down to listen to thy lay,

And chides his dog beside his knee,

Who barks, and frightens thee away. 20

The hedger pauses, ere he knocks

The stake down in the meadow-gap—

The boy, who every songster mocks,

Forbears the gate to clap,

When in the hedge that hides the post

Thy ruddy bosom he surveys,—

Pleased with thy song, in transport lost,

He pausing mutters scraps of praise.

The maiden marks. at day’s decline,

Thee in the yard, on broken plough. 30

And stops her song, to listen thine,

₇₀ Milking the brindled cow.

₇₁ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

Thy simple faith in man’s esteem,

From every heart hath favour won;

Dangers to thee no dangers seem—

Thou seemest to court them more than shun.

The clown in winter takes his gun,

The barn-door flocking birds to slay,

Yet should’st thou in the danger run

He turns the tube away. 40

The gipsy boy, who seeks in glee

Blackberries for a dainty meal,

Laughs loud on first beholding thee,

When called, so near his presence steal.

He surely thinks thou knew’st the call;

And though his hunger ill can spare

The fruit, he will not pluck it all,

But leaves some to thy share.

Upon the ditcher’s spade thou’lt hop,

For grubs and wreathing worms to search; 50

Where woodmen in the forest chop,

Thou’lt fearless on their faggots perch;

Nay, by the gipsies’ camp I stop,

And mark thee dwell a moment there,

To prune thy wing awhile, then drop,

The littered crumbs to share.

Domestic bird! thy pleasant face

Doth well thy common suit commend;

To meet thee in a stranger-place

₇₁ Is meeting with an ancient friend. 60

₇₂ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

I track the thicket’s glooms around,

And there, as loth to leave, again

Thou comest, as if thou knew the sound

And loved the sight of men.

The loneliest wood that men can trace

To thee a pleasant dwelling gives;

In every town and crowded place

The sweet domestic robin lives.

Go where one will, in every spot

Thy little welcome mates appear; 70

And, like the daisy’s common lot,

Thou’rt met with every where.

The swallow in the chimney tier,

Or twittering martin in the eaves,

With half of love and half of fear

His mortared dwelling shily weaves;

The sparrows in the thatch will shield;

Yet they, as well as e’er they can,

Contrive with doubtful faith to build

Beyond the reach of man. 80

But thou’rt less timid than the wren,

Domestic and confiding bird!

And spots, the nearest haunts of men,

Are oftenest for thy home preferred.

In garden-walls thou’lt build so low,

Close where the bunch of fennel stands,

That e’en a child just taught to go

₇₂ May reach with tiny hands.

₇₃ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

Sweet favoured bird! thy under-notes

In summer’s music grow unknown, 90

The concert from a thousand throats

Leaves thee as if to pipe alone;

No listening ear the shepherd lends,

The simple ploughman marks thee not,

And then by all thy autumn friends

Thou’rt missing and forgot.

The far-famed nightingale, that shares

Cold public praise from every tongue,

The popular voice of music heirs,

And injures much thy under-song: 100

Yet then my walks thy theme salutes;

I find thee autumn’s favoured guest,

Gay piping on the hazel-roots

Above thy mossy nest.

’Tis wrong that thou shouldst be despised,

When these gay fickle birds appear;

They sing when summer flowers are prized—

Thou at the dull and dying year.

Well! let the heedless and the gay

Bepraise the voice of louder lays, 110

The joy thou steal’st from Sorrow’s day

Is more to thee than praise.

And could my notes win aught from thine,

My words but imitate thy lay,

Time could not then his charge resign,

₇₃ Nor throw the meanest verse away

₇₄ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

But ever at this mellow time,

He should thy autumn praise prolong,

As they would share the happy prime

Of thy eternal song. 120

________

THE EVENING STAR.

HOW blest I’ve felt on summer eves,

When resting on a stile,

Half hid in hazel’s moistening leaves,

So weary after toil!

And gazing on the Evening Star,

That shed its ruddy light

Like joys, which something came to mar,

Retreating out of sight.

O’er the wood-corner’s sombre brown,

The lamp of dewy eve, 10

No sooner up than sloping down,

Seemed always taking leave.

Yet ‘tis a lovely sight to see,

And beautiful the time

It shines in heaven’s canopy

₇₄ At evening’s gentle prime.

₇₅ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

Akin to images and things

That glad the quiet mind,

A calmness o’er the heart it flings,

That poets love to find. 20

It shines o’er sheep within the fold,

O’er shepherds whistling home;

The plough lies in the fallow mould,

The horse is free to roam.

’Tis welcome to the weary breast,

It sweetens life’s employ,

It sees the labourer to his rest,

The lover to his joy.

The wanderer seeks his easy chair,

The light is in his cot, 30

His Evening Star is shining there,

And troubles are forgot.

It looks on many a happy place,

Where lovers steal to meet;

It gilds the milkmaid’s ruddy face,

While on her rustic seat.

Upon the old tree in the glen,

That by the hovel lay,

The shepherd there had set his pen,

₇₅ And whistled on his way. 40

₇₆ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

It shines o’er many a whispered pledge,

By fondness told again;

In cowsheds by the woodland hedge,

’Neath hawthorns by the lane.

It brings the balm to summer nights,

Like incense from afar,

And every musing mind delights

To hail the Evening Star.

________

THE PETTICHAP’S NEST.

WELL! in my many walks I’ve rarely found

A place less likely for a bird to form

Its nest—close by the rut-gulled waggon-road,

And on the almost bare foot-trodden ground,

With scarce a clump of grass to keep it warm!

Where not a thistle spreads its spears abroad,

Or prickly bush, to shield it from harm’s way;

And yet so snugly made, that none may spy

It out, save peradventure. You and I

Had surely passed it in our walk to-day, 10

Had chance not led us by it!—Nay, e’en now,

Had not the old bird heard us trampling bye,

₇₆ And fluttered out, we had not seen it lie,

₇₇ ^{……………………………………….……………………..……}

Brown as the road-way side. Small bits of hay

Plucked from the old propt haystack’s pleachy brow,

And withered leaves, make up its outward wall,

Which from the gnarl’d oak-dotterel yearly fall,

And in the old hedge-bottom rot away.

Built like an oven, through a little hole,

Scarcely admitting e’en two fingers in, 20

Hard to discern, the birds snug entrance win.

’Tis lined with feathers warm as silken stole,

Softer than seats of down for painless ease,

And full of eggs scarce bigger even than peas!

Here’s one most delicate, with spots as small

As dust, and of a faint and pinky red.

—Well! let them be, and Safety guard them well;

For Fear’s rude paths around are thickly spread,

And they are left to many dangerous ways.

A green grasshopper’s jump might break the shells, 30

Yet lowing oxen pass them morn and night,

And restless sheep around them hourly stray;

And no grass springs but hungry horses bite,

That trample past them twenty times a day.

Yet, like a miracle, in Safety’s lap

They still abide unhurt, and out of sight.

—Stop! here’s the bird—that woodman at the gap

Frightened him from the hedge:—’tis olive-green.

Well! I declare it is the Pettichap!

Not bigger than the wren, and seldom seen. 40

I’ve often found her nest in chance’s way,

When I in pathless woods did idly roam;

But never did I dream until to-day

A spot like this would be her chosen home.

₇₇

₇₈ ^{……………………………………….……………………..……}

INSECTS.

THESE tiny loiterers on the barley’s beard,

And happy units of a numerous herd

Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,

Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings,

How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!

No kin they bear to labour’s drudgery,

Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;

And where they fly for dinner no one knows—

The dew-drops feed them not—they love the shine

Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine. 10

All day they’re playing in their Sunday dress—

When night reposes, for they can do no less;

Then, to the heath-bell’s purple hood they fly,

And like to princes in their slumbers lie,

Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all,

In silken beds and roomy painted hall.

So merrily they spend their summer-day,

Now in the corn-fields, now the new-mown hay.

One almost fancies that such happy things,

With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings, 20

Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade

Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,

Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,

Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

₇₈

₇₉ ^{……………………………………….……………………..……}

THE YELLOWHAMMER’S NEST.

JUST by the wooden bridge a bird flew up,

Scared by the cow-boy, as he scrambled down

To reach the misty dewberry.—Let us stoop,

And seek its nest. The brook we need not dread—

’Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown,

As it sings harmless o’er its pebbly bed.

—Aye, here it is! stuck close beside the bank,

Beneath the bunch of grass, that spindles rank

Its husk-seeds tall and high;—’tis rudely planned

Of bleached stubbles, and the withered fare 10

That last year’s harvest left upon the land,—

Lined thinly with the horse’s sable hair.

Five eggs, pen-scribbled o’er with ink their shells,

Resembling writing-scrawls, which Fancy reads

As Nature’s poesy, and pastoral spells—

They are the Yellowhammer’s; and she dwells,

Most poet-like, where brooks and flowery weeds

As sweet as Castaly her fancy deems;

And that old mole-hill is Parnassus’ hill,

On which her partner haply sits, and dreams 20

O’er all his joys of song. Let’s leave it still

A happy home of sunshine, flowers, and streams.

Yet is the sweetest place exposed to ill,

A noisome weed, that burthens every soil;

For snakes are known, with chill and deadly coil,

To watch such nests, and seize the helpless young;

And like as if the plague became a guest,

To leave a houseless home, a ruined nest:

Aye! mournful hath the little warbler sung

When such like woes have rent his gentle breast. 30

₇₉

₈₀ ^{……………………………………….……………………..……}

TO A POET.

POET of mighty power! I fain

Would Court the muse that honoured thee,

And, like Elisha’s spirit, gain

A part of thy intensity;

And share the mantle which she flung

Around thee, when thy lyre was strung.

Though faction’s scorn at first did shun

With coldness thy inspired song,—

Though clouds of malice passed thy sun,

They could not hide it long; 10

Its brightness soon exhaled away

Dank night, and gained eternal day.

The critics’ wrath did darkly frown

Upon thy muse’s mighty lay;

But blasts that break the blossom down

Do only stir the bay;

And thine shall flourish green, and long,

With the eternity of song.

Thy genius saw, in quiet mood,

Gilt Fashion’s follies pass thee by, 20

And, like the monarch of the wood,

Towered o’er it to the sky,

Where thou couldst sing of other spheres,

₈₀ And feel the fame of future years!

₈₁ ^{……………………………………….………………..……}

Though bitter sneers and stinging scorns

Did throng the muse’s dangerous way,

Thy powers despised such little thorns,

They gave thee no dismay;

The scoffer’s insult passed thee by,

Thou smiled, and made him no reply. 30

Envy will gnaw its heart away,

To see thy genius gather root;

And as its flowers their sweets display,

Scorn’s malice shall be mute;

Hornets, that summer warmed to fly,

Shall at the death of summer die.

Though friendly praise hath but its hour,

And little praise with thee hath been,

The bay may loose its summer flower,

But still its leaves are green; 40

And thine, whose buds are on the shoot,

Shall only fade to change to fruit.

Fame lives not in the breath of words,

In public praise’s hue and cry;

The music of those summer birds

Is silent in a winter sky,

When thine shall live, and flourish on,

O’er wrecks where crowds of fames are gone.

The ivy shuns the city wall,

Where busy clamorous crowds intrude, 50

And climbs the desolated hall

₈₁ In silent solitude;

₈₂ ^{……………………………………….………………..……}

The time-worn arch, the fallen dome,

Are roots for its eternal home.

The bard his glory ne’er receives

Where summer’s common flowers are seen,

But winter finds it, when she leaves

The laurel only green;

And Time, from that eternal tree,

Shall weave a wreath to honour thee— 60

A sunny wreath—for poets meet,

From Helicon’s immortal soil,

Where sacred Time, with pilgrim-feet,

Walks forth to worship, not to spoil:

A wreath which Fame creates, and bears,

And deathless Genius only heirs.

Nought but thy ashes shall expire:

Thy Genius at thy obsequies

Shall kindle up its living fire,

And light the muse’s skies;— 70

Aye, it shall rise, and shine, and be

A Sun in song’s posterity!

₈₂

₈₃ ^{……………………………………….………………..……}

THE SKYLARK.

ABOVE the russet clods, the corn is seen

Sprouting its spiry points of tender green,

Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake,

Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.

Opening their golden caskets to the sun,

The buttercups make schoolboys eager run,

To see who shall be first to pluck the prize—

Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies,

And o’er her half-formed nest, with happy wings

Winnows the air, till in the cloud she sings, 10

Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies,

And drops, and drops, till in her nest she lies,

Which they unheeded passed—not dreaming then

That birds, which flew so high, would drop again

To nests upon the ground, which any thing

May come at to destroy. Had they the wing

Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud,

And build on nothing but a passing cloud!

As free from danger, as the heavens are free

From pain and toil, there would they build, and be, 20

And sail about the world to scenes unheard

Of and unseen,—O were they but a bird!

So think they, while they listen to its song,

And smile, and fancy, and so pass along;

While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,

Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.

₈₃

₈₄ ^{……………………………………….………………..……}

THE QUIET MIND.

THOUGH low my lot, my wish is won,

My hopes are few and staid;

All I thought life would do is done,

The last request is made.

If I have foes, no foes I fear,

To fate I live resigned;

I have a friend I value here,

And that’s a quiet mind.

I wish not it was mine to wear

Flushed Honour’s sunny crown; 10

I wish not I were Fortune’s heir—

She frowns, and let her frown:

I have no taste for pomp and strife,

Which others love to find:

I only wish the bliss of life—

A poor and quiet mind.

The trumpet’s taunt in battle-field,

The great man’s pedigree,—

What peace can all their honours yield?

And what are they to me? 20

Though praise and pomp, to eke the strife,

Rave like a mighty wind,

What are they to the calm of life—

₈₄ A still and quiet mind?

₈₅ ^{……………………………………….…………}

I mourn not that my lot is low,

I wish no higher state,

I sigh not that Fate made me so,

Nor teaze her to be great.

I am content—for well I see

What all at last shall find, 30

That life’s worst lot the best may be,

If that’s a quiet mind.

I see the world pass heedless by,

And pride above me tower;

It costs me not a single sigh

For either wealth, or power:

They are but men, and I’m a man

Of quite as great a kind,—

Proud too that life gives all she can,

A calm and quiet mind. 40

I never mocked at Beauty’s shrine,

To stain her lips with lies;

No knighthood’s fame or luck was mine,

To win Love’s richest prize;

And yet I’ve found in russet weed,

What all will wish to find,

True love—and comfort’s prize indeed,

A glad and quiet mind.

And come what will of care or woe,

As some must come to all, 50

I’ll wish not that they were not so,

₈₅ Nor mourn that they befall:

₈₆ ^{……………………………………….………………..}

If tears for sorrows start at will,

They’re comforts in their kind;

And I am blest, if with me still

Remains a quiet mind.

When friends depart, as part they must,

And love’s true joys decay,

That leave us like the summer dust,

Which whirlwinds puff away; 60

While life’s allotted time I brave,

Though left the last behind,

A prop and friend I still shall have,

If I’ve a quiet mind.

________

ADVENTURES OF A GRASSHOPPER.

A GRASSHOPPER, idle the whole summer long,

Played about the tall grass with unthinking delight,

And spent the whole day with his hopping and song,

And sipped of the dew for his supper at night.

Thus night brought him food, and the red rising sun

Awoke him, fresh fed, to his singing again;

And thus he went on, with his frolic and fun,

₈₆ Till winter winds whistled—and where was he then?

₈₇ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

The plain wore no longer the hue of his wing—

All withered and brown, as a desert could be; 10

In vain he looked round for the shelter of spring,

While the longest green sprig scarcely reached to his knee.

The rime-feathered night fell as white as a sheet,

And dew-drops were frozen before they could fall;

The shy creeping sun too denied him his heat;—

Thus the poor silly soul was deserted of all.

The ant had forewarned him of what he would be,

When he laughed at her toil on the parched summer plain;

He now saw the folly he then could not see,

But advice ta’en too late is but labour in vain. 20

If he wished to work now, there was nothing to find,

The winter told plain ’twas too late in the day;

In vain he looked round in the snow and the wind,

Unable to toil, and too saddened for play.

He looked back, and sighed o’er his singing and racket,

And employed the last hope he had left him—to beg;

So he sought in the woods withered leaves for a jacket,

Of a rush he made crutches, and limped of a leg.

The winds whistled round him while, seeking for pity,

O’er the white crimping snows he went limping along, 30

Sighing sad at each cottage his sorrowful ditty;

₈₇ But a song out of season is poverty’s song.

₈₈ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

The first hut he came to belonged to a mouse,

Beneath a warm bank at the foot of a tree;

Dead rushes and grass nodded over her house,

And made it as snug as a dwelling could be.

He told his sad tale, and the mouse, as in fear,

Bade him work for a living, and shrank from his sight,

For she at that moment was nibbling an ear

Of barley, she’d stol’n from a barn over-night. 40

He left her, and journeyed, half hopeless and chill,

And met with a beetle, that bustled away

To a crack called his home, in a sun-slanting hill,

And he’d scarce stop to hear what the beggar would say.

Though he held ’neath his arm a huge crumble of bread,

Which a shepherd-boy dropped on his cold dinner-seat,

And well might he haste, when from danger he fled,

For his dog had nigh crushed him to death with his feet.

At the hut of an earwig he next made a call,

Who crept from the cold in a down-headed thistle, 50

That nodded, and threatened each minute to fall,

While winnowing by it the tempest did whistle.

The beggar’s loud rapping soon scared her from sleep,

And her bosom for safety did terribly quake,

For she thought it the treading-down rustle of sheep,

₈₈ But slept undisturbed when she’d found the mistake,

₈₉ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

Hot summer’s sweet minstrel, the large humble-bee,

The one that wears clothing of tawny and brown,

Who early in spring’s kindled suns we may see

Booming round peeping blossoms, and bowing them down; 60

Our beggar, though hopeless, resolved to try all,

And came to his hut in an old rotten oak;

The bee thought it spring, and was glad at the call,

But frowned a denial as soon as he spoke.

He then sought a ladycow’s cottage of moss—

An old summer friend—with as little success,

And told his misfortunes to live by the loss—

She pitied, but pity’s no food for distress.

A chrysalis dwelt on the back of dead leaves

In a palace of silk, and it gladdened his heart; 70

But wealth rarely sleeps without dreaming of thieves,

So she kept her door bolted, and bade him depart.

He then shunned the road, and went up by a hedge,

Where some gnats had collected to dance in the sun,

And the day smiled so warm ’neath the bushes and sedge,

That hopes had nigh whispered the summer’s begun.

His heart even jump’d at the sight of their play;

But ere his sad steps to their revels had come,

A cloud hid the sun, which made night at noonday.

₈₉ And each gnat soon was missing away to his home. 80

₉₀ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

Over hill-spotted pasture and wild rushy lea,

A poor houseless vagabond, doomed for all weathers,

He wandered where none was left wretched but he,

While the white flaky snow fell about him like feathers.

In vain he sought shelter, and down in the vale,

By the brook, to an old hollow willow did roam,

For there e’en a foot-foundered, slow-creeping snail,

Had crept in before him, and made it her home.

Her door was glued up from the frost and the snow;

As a bee in its hive, she was warm in her shell; 90

And the storm, it might drift, and the wind, it might blow,

She was safe, and could dream about spring in her cell.

He knocked, and begged hard e’en to creep in the porch,

If she’d no room for two in her parlour to spare;

But as dead as a dormouse asleep in a church,

All was silent and still as no tenant were there.

Thus pleading and praying, and all to no good,

Telling vainly a story of troubles and wants,

He bethought of an old snubby oak by a wood,

Where flourished in summer a city of ants; 100

And though they reproved him for singing and play,

And told him that winter would bring its reward,

He knew they were rich, and he hoped on his way

₉₀ That pity’s kind ear would his sorrows regard.

₉₁ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

From people so rich, trifles could not be missed—

So he thought, ere his hopes to their finish had come;

Though as to their giving he could not insist,

Yet he might from such plenty be sure of a crumb.

Thus he dreamed on his journey; but guess his surprise,

When come to the place where such bustle had been, 110

A high wooden wall hid it all from his eyes,

And an ant round about it was not to be seen.

Their doors were shut up till the summer returned,

Nor would one have come out had he stood for a day;

Again, in despair, with his wants he sojourned,

And sighed lone and sad on his sorrowful way.

He limped on his crutches in sorrow and pain,

With not a hope left to indulge his distress.

While snows spread a carpet all over the plain,

And hiding his path made him travel by guess. 120

He roamed through the wood, where he’d fain made a stop,

But hunger so painful still urged him away;

For the oak, though it rocked like a cradle at top,

Was as still at its root as a midsummer day,

Where the leaves that the wind whirligig’d to the ground,

And feathers pruned off from the crow’s sooty wing,

Lie amid the green moss that is blooming around,

₉₁ Undisturbed till the bird builds its nest in the spring.

₉₂ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

The night came apace, and the clouds sailing bye

Wore the copper-flushed tints of the cold setting sun, 130

And crows to their rime-feathered forests did fly,

And owls round about had their whoopings begun.

He hopped through rough hedges and rude creaking wickets,

Till a shepherd’s lodge-house in the fields met his eye,

Where he heard with surprise the glad chirping of crickets,

And hoped his companions and summer were nigh.

He paused with delight on the chitter and mirth,

And tried to steal in through a crack in the door,

When a cat, half asleep on the warm cottage hearth,

Dreamed a mouse made the rustle, and bounced on the floor. 140

Our beggar, half frightened to death at the sight,

Hopped off, and retreated as fast as he could,

Better pleased to tramp on in the star-studded night,

Than hazard such danger for shelter and food.

In passing a barn he a dwelling espied,

Where silk hangings hung round the room like a hall,

In a crack of the wall. Once again he applied,

And who but a spider should come at the call;

The grasshopper said he was weary and lost,

And the spider gave welcome with cunning disguise; 150

Although a huge giant in size to his host,

₉₂ Our beggar’s heart trembled in terror’s surprise.

₉₃ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

For he set down before him dried wings of a fly,

And bade him with shy sort of welcome to eat,

But hunger found nothing its wants to supply,

And fear made him ready to sink through his seat.

Then to bed he went quaking with dread; well he might,

Where murdered things lay round the room in a heap!

Too true did he dream o’er his dangers that night,

For the spider watched chances, and killed him asleep. 160

In the morning a robin hopped down from his perch,

And fluttered about by the side of the wall,

When the murdering spider peeped out on the lurch,

And thought a new beggar was going to call.

The robin soon found what the spider was at,

And killed him, and bore the dead beggar away,

But whether to bury, or eat him, or what,

Is a secret he never would tell to this day.

Thus Idleness ever will sorrows attend,

Who often shakes hands with repentance too late, 170

And is forced to take up with a foe as a friend;

Then death and destruction are certain as fate.

Had the grasshopper ta’en the advice of the ant,

He had shunned the sad snares of bad company then,

And free, with his brothers and sisters, from want,

₉₃ Had lived to see summer and singing again.

₉₄ ^{……………………………………….………………………………………….……}

Now, Anna, my child, to this story of truth

Pay attention, and learn, as thy reason comes on,

To value that sweetest of seasons, thy youth,

Nor live to repent of its loss when ’tis gone. 180

Shun the idle, that spend all their childhood in play,

And pass them to school without tear or regret,

Where thy books, they will show thee that this is the way

To shun the sad fate which the grasshopper met.

________

GENIUS.

A CHARM appears in every land,

A voice in every clime,

That beautifies the desert sand,

And renders earth sublime.

Some meet it in the poet’s song,

Some in the sage’s fame;

Wherever seen, it pleases long,

And Genius is its name.

Scott found it with the Muse at first,

A stranger to her song; 10

He started as the music burst

₉₄ In tremors from his tongue.

₉₅ ^{……………………………………….……………….}

He wondered at the sounds he made,

And thought himself alone;

But by him stood that Spirit-shade

That marked him for her own;

Who smiled to see his timid hand

Pause on the sounding strings,

That echoed charms o’er sea and land

For peasants and for kings. 20

But Byron, like an eagle, flew

His daring flight, and won;

And looked, and felt, as though he knew

Eternity begun.

As thunder in its startled call—

As lightning from the cloud—

Seen, heard, and known above them all—

The proudest of the proud!

He dared the world a war to wage,

He scorned the critics’ mock, 30

And soared the mightiest of the age.—

The condor of the rock

Screamed from the dizzy Apennines,

As startled by his flight,

When Manfred sought the searing shrines

₉₅ Of demons in his might.

₉₆ ^{……………………………………….……………}

Fear left him to the thunder-shock,

His eyrie none could own;

The smaller birds in coveys flock—

The eagle soars alone. 40

He died, as Glory wills to die—

A martyr to its name;

A youth, in manhood’s majesty,

A patriarch in fame.

From history’s visions Scott has won

A heritage sublime;

Rising a giant in the sun,

Too overgrown for Time,

Who fled to see a mortal soar,

And leave him underneath, 50

As one of old, his conqueror—

So sought the aid of Death,

Who lays the mighty with the low,

The humble with the brave;—

Behind his cloud the sun must go,

And Scott is in his grave.

But Genius soars above the dead,

Too mighty for his power;

And deserts where his journey led,

₉₆ Spell-bound, are still in flower! 60

₉₇ ^{……………………………………….……………}

By poesy kept for times unborn;

And when those times are gone,

The worth of a remoter morn

Shall find them shining on.

For poesy is verse or prose,

Not bound to Fashion’s thrall;

No matter where true Genius grows,

’Tis beautiful in all.

Or high or low, its beacon-fires

Shall rise in every way, 70

Till drowsy Night the blaze admires,

And startles into day—

A day that rises like the sun

From clouds of spite and thrall,

Which gains, before its course be run,

A station seen by all.

Its voice grows thunder’s voice with age,

Till Time turns back, and looks;

Its breath embalms the flimsy page,

And gives a soul to books. 80

Through night at first it will rejoice,

And travel into day,

Pursuing, with a still small voice,

₉₇ That light that leads the way.

₉₈ ^{……………………………………….……………}

The grave its mortal dust may keep,

Where tombs and ashes lie;

Death only shall Time’s harvest reap,

For Genius cannot die.

________

FIRST LOVE’S RECOLLECTIONS.

FIRST love will with the heart remain

When all its hopes are bye;

As frail rose-blossoms still retain

Their fragrance when they die.

And Joy’s first dreams will haunt the mind

With shades from whence they sprung,

As Summer leaves the stems behind

On which Spring’s blossoms hung.

Mary! I dare not call thee dear,

I’ve lost that right so long; 10

Yet once again I vex thine ear

With memory’s idle song.

Had time and change not blotted out

The love of former days,

Thou wert the first that I should doubt

₉₈ Of pleasing with my praise.

₉₉ ^{……………………………………….……………}

When honey’d tokens from each tongue

Told with what truth we loved,

How rapturous to thy lips I clung,

Whilst nought but smiles reproved. 20

But now, methinks, if one kind word

Was whispered in thine ear,

Thou’dst startle like an untamed bird,

And blush with wilder fear.

How loth to part, how fond to meet,

Had we two used to be!

At sunset, with what eager feet

I hastened unto thee!

Scarce nine days passed us, ere we met

In spring—nay, wintry weather; 30

Now, nine years’ suns have risen and set,

Nor found us once together.

Thy face was so familiar grown,

Thyself so often by,

A moment’s memory, when alone,

Would bring thee to mine eye;

But now my very dreams forget

That witching look to trace;

And though thy beauty lingers yet,

It wears a stranger’s face. 40

I felt a pride to name thy name,

But now that pride hath flown;

My words e’en seem to blush for shame.

₉₉ That own I love thee on.

₁₀₀ ^{……………………………………….……………}

I felt I then thy heart did share,

Nor urged a binding vow;

But much I doubt if thou couldst spare

One word of kindness now.

And what is now my name to thee,

Though once nought seemed so dear? 50

Perhaps a jest, in hours of glee,

To please some idle ear.

And yet, like counterfeits, with me

Impressions linger on,

Though all the gilded finery

That passed for truth is gone.

Ere the world smiled upon my lays

A sweeter meed was mine;

Thy blushing look of ready praise

Was raised at every line. 60

But now, methinks, thy fervent love

Is changed to scorn severe;

And songs, that other hearts approve,

Seem discord to thine ear.

When last thy gentle cheek I pressed,

And heard thee feign adieu,

I little thought that seeming jest

Would prove a word so true.

A fate like this hath oft befell

E’en loftier hopes than ours; 70

Spring bids full many buds to swell

That ne’er can grow to flowers.

₁₀₀

₁₀₁ ^{……………………………………….……………}

A TENDER FLOWER.

THERE is a tender flower,

Yet found in every clime,

That decks the rudest bower,

Nor stays for place or time:

In caves or desert sands,

Unblest with sun or shower,

Wherever life expands.

Is found this tender flower.

Where storms with keenest breath

Bids stranger-flowers decay— 10

Where suns e’en shun its birth,

It is content to stay:

In sunshine and in gloom,

As if ’twere Sorrow’s dower,

In Grief’s lap it will bloom,

Or die, a lovely flower.

Within life’s wilderness,

This fond and tender flower

Doth every bosom bless,

And garlands Sorrow’s bower. 20

Rude Falsehood may despise

Its bloom, when in its power,

And idle themes devise,

₁₀₁ To mock this injured flower.

₁₀₂ ^{……………………………………….……………}

Yet Truth hath long agreed

To call it first of flowers,

Though treated like a weed

Too oft in Folly’s bowers.

On earth it loves to dwell,

Though blest with heavenly power, 30

And sure I need not tell

That LOVE’S the lauded flower.

_______

BALLAD.

I DREAMED not what it was to woo,

And felt my heart secure,

Till Robin dropt a word or two

Last evening on the moor.

Though with no flattering words, the while

His suit he urged to move,

Fond ways informed me with a smile

How sweet it was to love.

He left the path to let me pass,

The dropping dews to shun, 10

And walked himself among the grass—

I deemed it kindly done.

And when his hand was held to me,

As o’er each stile we went,

I deemed it rude to say him nay,

₁₀₂ Good manners to consent.

₁₀₃ ^{……………………………………….……………}

He saw me to the town, and then

He sighed, but kissed me not,

And whispered “we shall meet again,”

But didn’t say for what. 20

Yet on my breast his cheek had lain,

And though it gently prest,

It bruised my heart, and left a pain

That robs it of its rest.

_______

THE MILKING HOUR.

THE sun had grown on lessening day

A table, large and round,

And in the distant vapours grey

Seemed leaning on the ground;

When Mary, like a lingering flower,

Did tenderly agree

To stay beyond her milking hour,

And talk awhile with me.

We wandered, till the distant town

Was silenced nearly dumb, 10

And lessened on the quiet ear,

Small as a beetle’s hum.

She turned her milkpails upside down,

And made us each a seat,

And there we talked the evening brown,

₁₀₃ Beneath the rustling wheat.

₁₀₄ ^{……………………………………….……………}

And while she milked her breathing cows

I sat beside the streams,

In musing o’er our evening joys,

Like one in pleasant dreams: 20

The bats and owls, to meet the night,

From hollow trees had gone,

And e’en the flowers had shut for sleep,

Yet still she lingered on.

We mused in raptures side by side,

Our wishing seemed as one;

We talked of Time’s retreating tide,

And sighed to find it gone.

And we had sighed more deeply still

O’er all our pleasures past, 30

If we had known what now we know,

That we had met the last.

_______

THE BACKWARD SPRING.

THE day waxes warmer,

The winter’s far gone,

Then come out, my charmer,

And bring summer on.

Thy beauty is gleaming

So sweetly to see;

’Tis summer and sunshine

₁₀₄ To be only with thee.

₁₀₅ ^{……………………………………….……………}

I thought in some quarrel

The too tardy Spring 10

Had ta’en Winter’s apparel—

But no such a thing;

For the snow ’neath the hedges

Hath packed up and gone,

And May’s little pledges

For Summer come on.

The flower’s on the hawthorn,

Oak-balls on the tree,

And the blackbird is building

Love’s palace in glee; 20

Then come out, my charmer,

And lead Summer on,

Where’er thou art smiling,

Care and Winter are gone.

Even snows, ’neath thy feet,

I could fancy to be

A carpet of daisies.

The rime on the tree

Would bloom in thy smiling,

And quickly appear 30

Like blossoms, beguiling

The prime of the year.

The ice on the waters,

Oh! I could agree

That Winter had changed

₁₀₅ To a palace for thee—

₁₀₆ ^{……………………………………….……………}

Turning pools into mirrors,

And silence to glee,

Reflecting the image

Of rapture in thee. 40

Then come forth, my charmer!

Thy presence can charm

Into summer the winter,

To sunshine the storm.

Though without thee I feel

What a desert would be,

I should think, in thy presence,

’Twas Eden with me.

________

NUTTING.

RIGHT rosy gleamed the autumn morn,

Right golden shone the autumn sun,

The mowers swept the bleachy corn,

While long their early shades did run;

The leaves were burnt to many hues,

The hazel nuts were ripe and brown;

My Mary’s kindness could but choose

₁₀₆ To pluck them, when I bore them down.

₁₀₇ ^{……………………………………….……………………..…}

The shells, her auburn hair did show

Faint semblance to, yet beautiful; 10

She smiled to hear me tell her so,

Till I forgot the nuts to pull.

I looked up to an ash and thorn

For nuts—my wits were all away;

She laughed so rich that autumn morn,

All, all but Love was wide away.

And soon the day was on its wane,

Ere Joy had thought one hour away;

Who could but wish Time back again,

When Love was so inclined to stay! 20

She started at each little sound

The branches made; yet would her eye

Regret the gloom encroaching round,

That told her night was in the sky.

I helped her through the hedge-row gap,

And thought the very thorns unkind,

As not to part;—while in her lap

She sought the ripest bunch to find.

Then on a hill, beneath a tree,

We shelled the nuts;—as lovers’ spells, 30

She often threw the nuts at me,

And blushed to see me hoard the shells—

Love-tokens for an after day,

Passports, a blushing kiss to claim.

Soon went that Autumn-eve away,

₁₀₇ And never more its fellow came.

₁₀₈ ^{……………………………………….……………………}

The west was in a glorious trim

Of colours, mixed in endless thrall,

And on the dark wood’s distant rim

The sun hung like a golden ball. 40

Right luscious were those nutting bowers,

Impulses sweet for many a day!

Joy never smiled on sweeter hours,

Or sighed o’er sweeter passed away.

’Twas Mary’s smiles and sweet replies

That gave the sky so sweet a stain—

So bright, I never saw him rise,

Nor ever set so sweet again.

________

HOME HAPPINESS.

LIKE a thing of the desert, alone in its glee,

I make a small home seem an empire to me;

Like a bird in the forest, whose world is its nest,

My home is my all, and the centre of rest.

Let Ambition stretch over the world at a stride,

Let the restless go rolling away with the tide,

I look on life’s pleasures as follies at best,

₁₀₈ And, like sunset, feel calm when I’m going to rest.

₁₀₉ ^{……………………………………….……………………………………..…}

I sit by the fire, in the dark winter’s night,

While the cat cleans her face with her foot in delight, 10

And the winds all a-cold, with rude clatter and din

Shake the windows, like robbers who want to come in;

Or else, from the cold to be hid and away,

By the bright burning fire see my children at play,

Making houses of cards, or a coach of a chair,

While I sit enjoying their happiness there.

I walk round the orchard on sweet summer eves,

And rub the perfume from the black-currant leaves,

Which, like the geranium, when touched, leave a smell

That lad’s-love and sweet-briar can hardly excel. 20

I watch the plants grow, all begemmed with the shower,

That glitters like pearls in a sun-shiny hour;

And hear the pert robin just whistle a tune,

To cheer the lone hedger when labour is done.

Joys come like the grass in the fields springing there,

Without the mere toil of attention or care;

They come of themselves, like a star in the sky,

And the brighter they shine when the cloud passes by.

I wish but for little, and find it all there,

Where peace gives its faith to the home of the hare, 30

Who would else, overcome by her fears, run away

₁₀₉ From the shade of the flower and the breeze of the day.

₁₁₀ ^{……………………………………….……………………………………..…}

O the out-of-door blessings of leisure for me!

Health, riches, and joy!—it includes them all three.

There Peace comes to me—I have faith in her smile—

She’s my playmate in leisure, my comfort in toil;

There the short pasture-grass hides the lark on its nest,

Though scarcely so high as the grasshopper’s breast;

And there its moss-ball hides the wild honey-bee,

And there joy in plenty grows riches for me. 40

Far away from the world, its delusions and snares—

Whose words are but breath, and its breathing but cares,—

Where trouble’s sown thick as the dews of the morn,

One can scarce set a foot without meeting a thorn—

There are some view the world as a lightly thrown ball,

There are some look on cities like stones in a wall—

Nothing more. There are others, Ambition’s proud heirs,

Of whom I have neither the courage nor cares.

So I sit on my bench, or enjoy in the shade

My toil as a pasture, while using the spade; 50

My fancy is free in her pleasure to stray,

Making voyages round the whole world in a day.

I gather home-comforts where cares never grew,

Like manna, the heavens rain down with the dew,

Till I see the tired hedger bend wearily by,

Then like a tired bird to my corner I fly.

₁₁₀

₁₁₁ ^{……………………………………….…………………………………….…}

THE PASTURE.

THE pewit is come to the green,

And swoops o’er the swain at his plough.

Where the greensward in places is seen,

Pressed down by the lairs of the cow,

The mole roots her hillocks anew,

For seasons to dress at their wills

In their thyme, and their beautiful dew;

For the pasture’s delight is its hills.

They invite us, when weary, to drop

On their cushions awhile; and again 10

They invite us, when musing, to stop,

And see how they checker the plain:

And the old hills swell out in the sun,

So inviting e’en now, that the boy

Has his game of peg-morris begun,

And cuts his rude figures in joy.

When I stroll o’er the mole-hilly green,

Stepping onward from hillock to hill,

I think over pictures I’ve seen,

₁₁₁ And feel them deliciously still. 20

₁₁₂ ^{……………………………………….…………………}

I think when the glad shepherd lay

On the velvet sward stretched, for a bed,

On the bosom of sunshiny May,

While a hillock supported his head.

I think when, in weeding, the maid

Made choice of a hill for her seat;

When the winds so deliciously played

In her curls, ’mid her blushes so sweet.

I think of gay groups in the shade,

In hay-time, with noise never still, 30

When the short sward their gay cushions made.

And their dinner was spread on a hill.

I think when, in harvest, folks lay

Underneath the green shade of a tree,

While the children were busy at play,

Running round the huge trunk in their glee.

Joy shouted wherever I went;

And e’en now such a freshness it yields,

I could fancy, with books and a tent,

What delight we could find in the fields. 40

₁₁₂

^{……………………………………….……………………………………..…}