SONNETS.

_______

I.

RURAL SCENES.

I NEVER saw a man in all my days—

One whom the calm of quietness pervades—

Who gave not woods and fields his hearty praise,

And felt a happiness in summer shades.

There I meet common thoughts, that all may read

Who love the quiet fields:—I note them well,

Because they give me joy as I proceed,

And joy renewed, when I their beauties tell

In simple verse, and unambitious songs,

That in some mossy cottage haply may 10

Be read, and win the praise of humble tongues

In the green shadows of some after-day.

For rural fame may likeliest rapture yield

To hearts, whose songs are gathered from the field.

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II.

WATER-LILIES.

THE water-lilies on the meadow stream

Again spread out their leaves of glossy green;

And some, yet young, of a rich copper gleam,

Scarce open, in the sunny stream are seen,

Throwing a richness upon Leisure’s eye,

That thither wanders in a vacant joy;

While on the sloping banks, luxuriantly,

Tending of horse and cow, the chubby boy,

In self-delighted whims, will often throw

Pebbles, to hit and splash their sunny leaves: 10

Yet quickly dry again, they shine and glow

Like some rich vision that his eye deceives;

Spreading above the water, day by day,

In dangerous deeps, yet out of danger’s way.

________

III.

SUMMER MOODS.

I LOVE at even-tide to walk alone,

Down narrow lanes o’erhung with dewy thorn,

Where from the long grass underneath, the snail

₁₁₄ Jet black creeps out and sprouts his timid horn.

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I love to muse o’er meadows newly mown,

Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air;

Where bees search round with sad and weary drone,

In vain for flowers that bloomed but newly there;

While in the juicy corn, the hidden quail

Cries “wet my foot!” and hid as thoughts unborn, 10

The fairy-like and seldom seen land-rail

Utters “craik, craik,” like voices underground:

Right glad to meet the evening’s dewy veil,

And see the light fade into glooms around.

________

IV.

THE VILLAGE BOY.

FREE from the cottage corner, see how wild

The village boy along the pasture hies,

With every smell, and sound, and sight beguiled,

That round the prospect meets his wondering eyes;

Now stooping eager for the cowslip-pips,

As though he’d get them all; now tired of these,

Across the flaggy brook he eager leaps

For some new flower his happy rapture sees;

Now tearing ’mid the bushes on his knees,

On woodland banks, for blue bell-flowers he creeps; 10

And now, while looking up among the trees,

He spies a nest, and down he throws his flowers,

And up he climbs with new-fed extacies—

The happiest object in the summer hours.

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V.

EVENING SCHOOLBOYS.

HARK to that happy shout!—the school-house door

Is open thrown, and out the younkers teem;

Some run to leap-frog on the rushy moor,

And others dabble in the shallow stream,

Catching young fish, and turning pebbles o’er

For muscle shells. Look in that sunny gleam,

Where the retiring sun, that rests the while,

Streams through the broken hedge! How happy seem

Those friendly schoolboys leaning o’er the stile,

Both reading in one book!—Anon a dream, 10

Rich with new joys, doth their young hearts beguile,

And the book’s pocketed right hastily.

Ah, happy boys! well may ye turn, and smile,

When joys are your’s that never cost a sigh.

________

VI.

THE DEITY.

OMNIPOTENT Eternal!—known Unknown!

The world whose footstool is, the heaven whose throne!

Who is it spreads this glory all around

₁₁₆ Star-studded skies, and flower-bewildered ground?

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Who is it speaks those wonders, and they be?

Who is it, dread Omnipotent, but thee!

Thou on the sun didst breathe thy power’s desire,

And instant kindled his eternal fire;

Thou badest the unpillared skies their arch expand—

Thy breath is underneath them, and they stand; 10

Thou badest the seas in tides to rise and fall,

And earth to swell triumphant over all.

Thy mercy, co-eternal with thy skill,

Saw all was good, and bids it flourish still!

_________

VII.

SEDGE-BIRD’S NEST.

FIXED in a white-thorn bush, its summer guest,

So low, e’en grass o’er-topped its tallest twig,

A sedge-bird built its little benty nest,

Close by the meadow pool and wooden brig,

Where schoolboys every morn and eve did pass,

In seeking nests, and finding, deeply skilled,

Searching each bush and taller clump of grass,

Where’er was likelihood of bird to build:

Yet did she hide her habitation long,

And keep her little brood from danger’s eye, 10

Hidden as secret as a cricket’s song,

Till they, well-fledged, o’er widest pools could fly;

Proving that Providence is ever nigh,

To guard the simplest of her charge from wrong.

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VIII.

THE SHEPHERD’S TREE.

HUGE elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred,

Like to a warrior’s destiny! I love

To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward,

And hear the laugh of summer leaves above;

Or on thy buttressed roots to sit, and lean

In careless attitude, and there reflect

On times, and deeds, and darings that have been—

Old castaways, now swallowed in neglect;

While thou art towering in thy strength of heart,

Stirring the soul to vain imaginings, 10

In which life’s sordid being hath no part.

The wind of that eternal ditty sings

Humming of future things, that burn the mind

To leave some fragment of itself behind.

________

IX.

AN IDLE HOUR.

SAUNTERING at ease, I often love to lean

O’er old bridge walls, and mark the flood below,

Whose ripples, through the weeds of oily green,

₁₁₈ Like happy travelers chatter as they go;

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And view the sunshine dancing on the arch,

Time keeping to the merry waves beneath.

While on the banks some drooping blossoms parch,

Thirsting for water in the day’s hot breath,

Right glad of mud-drops splashed upon their leaves,

By cattle plunging from the steepy brink; 10

Each water-flower more than its share receives,

And revels to its very cups in drink:—

So in the world, some strive, and fare but ill,

While others riot, and have plenty still.

________

X.

THE SHEPHERD BOY.

PLEASED in his loneliness, he often lies,

Telling glad stories to his dog, or e’en

His very shadow, that the loss supplies

Of living company. Full oft he’ll lean

By pebbled brooks, and dream with happy eyes

Upon the fairy pictures spread below,

Thinking the shadowed prospects real skies,

And happy heavens, where his kindred go.

Oft we may track his haunts, where he hath been

To spend the leisure which his toils bestow, 10

By nine-peg-morris nicked upon the green,

Or flower-stuck gardens, never meant to grow,

Or figures cut on trees, his skill to show,

Where he a prisoner from a shower hath been.

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XI.

LORD BYRON.

A SPLENDID sun hath set!—when shall our eyes

Behold a morn so beautiful arise

As that which gave his mighty genius birth,

And all eclipsed the lesser lights on earth!

His first young burst of twilight did declare

Beyond that haze a Sun was rising there;

As when the morn, to usher in the day,

Speeds from the east in sober garb of grey

At first, till warming into wild delight,

She casts her mantle off, and shines in light. 10

The labour of small minds an age may dream,

And be but shadows on Time’s running stream;

While Genius, in an hour, makes what shall be,

The next, a portion of eternity.

________

XII.

EVENING PASTIME.

MUSING beside the crackling fire at night,

While singing kettle merrily prepares

Woman’s solacing beverage, I delight

₁₂₀ To read a pleasant volume, where the cares

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Of life are sweetened by the muse’s voice—

Thomson, or Cowper, or the bard that bears

Life’s humblest name, though Nature’s favoured choice,

Her pastoral Bloomfield;—and as evening wears,

Heavy with reading, list the little tales

Of laughing children, who edge up their chairs 10

To tell the past day’s sport, which never fails

To cheer the spirits. While my fancy shares

Their artless talk, man’s sturdy reason quails,

And memory’s joy grows young again with their’s.

________

XIII.

THE WREN.

WHY is the cuckoo’s melody preferred,

And nightingale’s rich songs so madly praised

In poets’ rhymes! Is there no other bird

Of Nature’s minstrelsy, that oft hath raised

One’s heart to extacy and mirth as well?

I judge not how another’s taste is caught,

With mine are other birds that bear the bell,

Whose song hath crowds of happy memories brought:—

Such the wood robin, singing in the dell;

And little wren, that many a time hath sought 10

Shelter from showers, in huts, where I did dwell

In early spring, the tenant of the plain,

Tending my sheep; and still they come to tell

The happy stories of the past again.

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XIV.

A SPRING MORNING.

THE Spring comes in with all her hues and smells,

In freshness breathing over hills and dells;

O’er woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings,

And meads washed fragrant by their laughing springs.

Fresh are new opened flowers, untouched and free

From the bold rifling of the amorous bee.

The happy time of singing birds is come,

And Love’s lone pilgrimage now finds a home;

Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove,

And the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love. 10

The foxes play around their dens, and bark

In joy’s excess, ’mid woodland shadows dark.

The flowers join lips below; the leaves above;

And every sound that meets the ear is Love.

_________

XV.

SPRING.

NOW that the Spring the quickening Earth espouses,

And Nature’s feathered folk keep holiday,

And each with song in bush and tree carouses,

₁₂₂ Who would not from dull cities flee away,

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From smoke-enveloped streets and gloomy houses,

To fields where forth Health’s merry maidens fare,

To milk their red cows; and when that is done,

To spend in sport the time they have to spare,

Pressing the gold locks of the enamoured Sun

On pleasant banks, with young Love toying there! 10

Oh whoso wishes for a blest estate,

That in the golden mean would fear no fall,

Needs neither seek to be or rich or great,

While a poor milkmaid lives enjoying all.

________

XVI.

CROWLAND ABBEY.

IN sooth, it seems right awful and sublime

To gaze by moonlight on the shattered pile

Of this old Abbey, struggling still with Time,—

The grey owl hooting from its rents the while;

And tottering stones, as wakened by the sound,

Crumbling from arch and battlement around,

Urging dread echoes from the gloomy aisle,

To sink more silent still.—The very ground

In Desolation’s garment doth appear,

The lapse of age and mystery profound. 10

We gaze on wrecks of ornamented stones,

On tombs whose sculptures half erased appear,

On rank weeds, battening over human bones,

Till even one’s very shadow seems to fear.

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XVII.

A PLEASANT PLACE.

NOW Summer comes, and I with staff in hand

Will hie me to the sabbath of her joys,—

To heathy spots, and the unbroken land

Of woodland heritage, unknown to noise

And toil;—save many a playful band

Of dancing insects, that well understand

The sweets of life, and with attuned voice

Sing in sweet concert to the pleasant May.

There by a little bush I’ll listening rest,

To hear the nightingale, a lover’s lay 10

Chaunt to his mate, who builds her careless nest

Of oaken leaves, on thorn-stumps, mossed and grey;

Feeling, with them, I too am truly blest

By making sabbaths of each common day.

_________

XVIII.

VANITY OF FAME.

WHAT boots the toil to follow common fame,

With youth’s wild visions of anxiety,

And waste a life to win a feeble claim

₁₂₄ Upon her page, which she so soon turns by

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To make new votaries room, who share the same

Rewards,—and with her faded memories lie

Neighbours to shadows!—’Tis a sorry game

To play in earnest with;—to think one’s name,

Buoyant with visions of eternity,

And as familiar now in the world’s ear 10

As flowers and sunshine to the summer’s eye,

Shall be forgot, with other things that were;

And like old words grown out of use, thrown by,

In the confused lap of still Obscurity.

________

XIX.

MEMORY.

I WOULD not that my being all should die,

And pass away with every common lot;

I would not that my humble dust should lie

In quite a strange and unfrequented spot,

By all unheeded and by all forgot;

With nothing save the heedless winds to sigh,

And nothing but the dewy morn to weep

About my grave, far hid from the world’s eye:

I fain would have some friend to wander nigh,

And find a path to where my ashes sleep— 10

Not the cold heart that merely passes by,

To read who lies beneath; but such as keep

Past memories warm with deeds of other years,

And pay to Friendship some few friendly tears.

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XX.

DEATH OF BEAUTY.

NOW thou art gone, the fairy rose is fled,

That erst gay Fancy’s garden did adorn.

Thine was the dew on which her folly fed,

The sun by which she glittered in the morn.

Now thou art gone, her pride is withered;

In dress of common weeds she doth array,

And vanity neglects her in its play.

Thou wert the very index of her praise,

Her borrowed bloom was kindled from thy rays:

Like dancing insects that the sun allures, 10

She little heeded it was gained from thee.

Vain joys! what are they now their sun’s away?

What! but poor shadows, that blank night obscures,

As the grave hides what would dishonoured be.

________

XXI.

FAME.

WHAT’S future fame?—a melody loud playing

In crowds where one is wanting, whose esteeming

Would love to hear it best:—a sun displaying

₁₂₆ A solitary glory, whose bright beaming,

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Smiling on withered flowers and leaves decaying,

Lingers behind its world:—a crown vain gleaming

Around a shade, whose substance Death hath banished:

A living dream, o’er which Hope once was dreaming:

A busy echo, on each lip delaying,

When he that woke it into life is vanished: 10

A picture, that from all hearts praise is stealing—

A statue, towering over Glory’s game—

That cannot feel; while he that was all feeling

Is past, and gone, and nothing but a name.

________

XXII.

TO THE MEMORY OF BLOOMFIELD.

SWEET unassuming Minstrel! not to thee

The dazzling fashions of the day belong;

Nature’s wild pictures, field, and cloud, and tree,

And quiet brooks, far distant from the throng,

In murmurs tender as the toiling bee,

Make the sweet music of thy gentle song.

Well! Nature owns thee: let the crowd pass by;

The tide of fashion is a stream too strong

For pastoral brooks, that gently flow and sing:

But Nature is their source, and earth and sky 10

Their annual offering to her current bring.

Thy gentle muse and memory need no sigh;

For thine shall murmur on to many a spring,

When prouder streams are summer-burnt and dry.

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XXIII.

THE THRUSH’S NEST.

WITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,

That overhung a molehill large and round,

I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush

Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound

With joy; and, often an intruding guest,

I watched her secret toils from day to day—

How true she warped the moss, to form a nest,

And modelled it within with wood and clay;

And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,

There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, 10

Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue;

And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours,

A brood of Nature’s minstrels chirp and fly,

Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.

_________

XXIV.

THE SYCAMORE.

IN massy foliage of a sunny green

The splendid sycamore adorns the spring,

Adding rich beauties to the varied scene,

₁₂₈ That Nature’s breathing arts alone can bring.

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Hark! how the insects hum around, and sing,

Like happy Ariels, hid from heedless view—

And merry bees, that feed, with eager wing,

On the broad leaves, glazed o’er with honey dew.

The fairy Sunshine gently flickers through

Upon the grass, and buttercups below; 10

And in the foliage Winds their sports renew,

Waving a shade romantic to and fro,

That o’er the mind in sweet disorder flings

A flitting dream of Beauty’s fading things.

________

XXV.

THE CRAB-TREE.

SPRING comes anew, and brings each little pledge

That still, as wont, my childish heart deceives;

I stoop again for violets in the hedge,

Among the ivy and old withered leaves;

And often mark, amid the clumps of sedge,

The pooty-shells I gathered when a boy:

But cares have claimed me many an evil day,

And chilled the relish which I had for joy.

Yet when Crab-blossoms blush among the May,

As erst in years gone by, I scramble now 10

Up ’mid the bramble for my old esteems,

Filling my hands with many a blooming bough;

Till the heart-stirring past as present seems,

Save the bright sunshine of those fairy dreams.

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XXVI.

WINTER.

OLD January, clad in crispy rime,

Comes limping on, and often makes a stand;

The hasty snow-storm ne’er disturbs his time,

He mends no pace, but beats his dithering hand.

And February, like a timid maid,

Smiling and sorrowing follows in his train;

Huddled in cloak, of miry roads afraid,

She hastens on to meet her home again.

Then March, the prophetess, by storms inspired,

Gazes in rapture on the troubled sky, 10

And now in headlong fury madly fired,

She bids the hail-storm boil and hurry by.

Yet ’neath the blackest cloud, a Sunbeam flings

Its cheering promise of returning Springs.

________

XXVII.

BEANS IN BLOSSOM.

THE south-west wind! how pleasant in the face

It breathes! while, sauntering in a musing pace,

I roam these new ploughed fields; or by the side

₁₃₀ Of this old wood, where happy birds abide,

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And the rich blackbird, through his golden bill,

Utters wild music when the rest are still.

Luscious the scent comes of the blossomed bean,

As o’er the path in rich disorder lean

Its stalks; whence bees, in busy rows and toils,

Load home luxuriantly their yellow spoils. 10

The herd-cows toss the molehills in their play;

And often stand the stranger’s steps at bay,

Mid clover blossoms red and tawny white,

Strong scented with the summer’s warm delight.

________

XXVIII.

BOYS AT PLAY.

THE shepherd boys play by the shaded stile,

While sunshine gleams with warm and idle smile;

Or hide ’neath hedges, where the linnets sing,

And leaves spread curtains round the bubbling spring.

The winds with idle dalliance wave the woods,

And toy with Nature in her youthful moods,

Fanning the feathers on the linnet’s breast,

And happy maid in lightsome garments drest,

Sweeping her gown in many a graceful shade,

As if enamoured of the form displayed. 10

Upon the south-west wind the boiling showers

Bring sweet arrivals of all sorts of flowers,

Enjoying, like the laughing boys at play,

Sabbaths of Sunshine’s out-door holiday.

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XXIX.

NOVEMBER.

SYBIL of Months, and worshipper of winds!

I love thee, rude and boisterous as thou art;

And scraps of joy my wandering ever finds

’Mid thy uproarious madness;—when the start

Of sudden tempests stirs the forest leaves

Into hoarse fury, till the shower set free,

Stills the huge swells. Then ebb the mighty heaves,

That sway the forest like a troubled sea.

I love thy wizard noise, and rave in turn

Half-vacant thoughts, and rhymes of careless form; 10

Then hide me from the shower, a short sojourn,

’Neath ivied oak; and mutter to the storm,

Wishing its melody belonged to me,

That I might breathe a living song to thee.

________

XXX.

OLD POESY.

SWEET is the poesy of the olden time,

In the unsullied infancy of rhyme,

When Nature reigned omnipotent to teach,

₁₃₂ And Truth and Feeling owned the powers of speech.

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Rich is the music of each early theme,

And sweet as sunshine in a summer dream,

Giving to stocks and stones, in rapture’s strife,

A soul of utterance and a tongue of life.

Sweet are these wild flowers in their disarray,

Which Art and Fashion fling as weeds away, 10

To sport with shadows of inferior kind,

Mere magic-lanthorns of the shifting mind,

Automatons of wonder-working powers,

Shadows of life, and artificial flowers.

________

XXXI.

TO DEWINT.

DEWINT! I would not flatter; nor would I

Pretend to critic-skill in this thy art;

Yet in thy landscapes I can well descry

The breathing hues as Nature’s counterpart.

No painted peaks, no wild romantic sky,

No rocks, nor mountains, as the rich sublime,

Hath made thee famous; but the sunny truth

Of Nature, that doth mark thee for all time,

Found on our level pastures:—spots, forsooth,

Where common skill sees nothing deemed divine. 10

Yet here a worshipper was found in thee;

And thy young pencil worked such rich surprise,

That rushy flats, befringed with willow tree,

Rivalled the beauties of Italian skies.

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XXXII.

THE MILKING SHED.

GOOD Heaven! and can it be, that such a nook

As this can raise such sudden rapture up?

Two dottrel trees, an oak and ash, that stoop

Their aged bodies o’er a little brook,

And raise their sheltering heads above and o’er

A little hovel, raised on four old props

Old as themselves to look on—and what more?

Nought but a hawthorn hedge!—and yet one stops

In admiration and in joy, to gaze

Upon these objects, feeling, as I stand, 10

That nought in all this wide world’s thorny ways

Can match this bit of feeling’s fairy land.

How can it be? Time owns the potent spell—

I’ve known it from a boy, and love it well.

________

XXXIII.

THE HAPPY BIRD.

THE happy White-throat on the swaying bough,

Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind

That ushers in the showers of April,—now

₁₃₄ Carols right joyously; and now reclined,

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Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat,

To keep her hold;—and till the wind for rest

Pauses, she mutters inward melodies,

That seem her heart’s rich thinkings to repeat.

But when the branch is still, her little breast

Swells out in rapture’s gushing symphonies; 10

And then, against her brown wing softly prest,

The wind comes playing, an enraptured guest,

This way and that she swings—till gusts arise

More boisterous in their play, then off she flies.

________

XXXIV.

THE BREATH OF MORNING.

HOW beautiful and fresh the pastoral smell

Of tedded hay breathes in this early morn!

Health in these meadows must in summer dwell,

And take her walks among these fields of corn.

I cannot see her, yet her voice is out

On every breeze that fans my hair about.

Although the Sun is scarcely out of bed,

And leans on ground as half awake from sleep,

The boy hath left his mossy-thatched shed,

And bawls right lustily to cows and sheep; 10

Or taken with the woodbines overspread,

Climbs up to pluck them from their thorny bowers,

Half drowned by drops which patter on his head

From leaves bemoistened by night’s secret showers.

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XXXV.

GLINTON SPIRE.

GLINTON! thy taper spire predominates

Over the level landscape; and the mind,

Musing the pleasing picture, contemplates

What elegance of beauty, much refined

By taste, effects. It almost elevates

One’s admiration; making common things

Around it glow with beauties not their own.

Thus in this landscape, earth superior springs;

Those straggling trees, though lonely, seem not lone,

But in thy presence wear a conscious power; 10

Even these tombs of melancholy stone,

Gleaning cold memories round Oblivion’s bower,

Types of eternity appear, and hire

A lease from Fame by thy enchanting spire.

________

XXXVI.

BURTHORP OAK.

OLD noted oak! I saw thee in a mood

Of vague indifference; and yet with me

Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood

₁₃₆ For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea

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Of grass that waves around thee!—Solitude

Paints not a lonelier picture to the view,

Burthorp! than thy one melancholy tree,

Age-rent, and shattered to a stump. Yet new

Leaves come upon each rift and broken limb

With every spring; and Poesy’s visions swim 10

Around it, of old days, and chivalry;

And desolate fancies bid the eyes grow dim

With feelings, that Earth’s grandeur should decay,

And all its olden memories pass away.

________

XXXVII.

EVENING PRIMROSE.

WHEN once the sun sinks in the west,

And dew-drops pearl the Evening’s breast;

Almost as pale as moonbeams are,

Or its companionable star,

The Evening Primrose opes anew

Its delicate blossoms to the dew;

And hermit-like, shunning the light,

Wastes its fair bloom upon the Night;

Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,

Knows not the beauty he possesses. 10

Thus it blooms on while Night is by;

When Day looks out with open eye,

’Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun,

It faints, and withers, and is gone.

₁₃₇

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XXXVIII.

SUDDEN SHOWER.

BLACK grows the southern sky, betokening rain,

And humming hive-bees homeward hurry by:

They feel the change; so let us shun the grain,

And take the broad road while our feet are dry.

Aye there, some drops fell moistening on my face,

And pattering on my hat—’tis coming nigh!—

Let’s look about, and find a sheltering place.

The little things around us fear the sky,

And hasten through the grass to shun the shower.

Here stoops an ash-tree—hark! the wind gets high, 10

But never mind; this ivy, for an hour,

Rain as it may, will keep us drily here:

That little wren knows well his sheltering bower,

Nor leaves his covert, though we come so near.

________

XXXIX.

CARELESS RAMBLES.

I LOVE to wander at my idle will,

In summer’s luscious prime, about the fields,

To kneel, when thirsty, at the little rill,

₁₃₈ And sip the draught its pebbly bottom yields;

₁₃₉ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

And where the maple bush its fountain shields,

To lie, and rest a sultry hour away,

Cropping the swelling peascod from the land;

Or ’mid the sheltering woodland-walks to stray,

Where oaks for aye o’er their old shadows stand;

’Neath whose dark foliage, with a welcome hand, 10

I pluck the luscious strawberry, ripe and red

As Beauty’s lips;—and in my fancy’s dreams,

As ’mid the velvet moss I musing tread,

Feel Life as lovely as her picture seems.

________

XL.

THE OLD WILLOW.

THE juicy wheat now spindles into ear,

And trailing pea-blooms ope their velvet eyes;

And weeds and flowers, by crowds, far off and near,

In all their sunny liveries appear,

For summer’s lustre boasts unnumbered dyes.

How pleasant, ’neath this willow by the brook—

Its ancient dwelling-place for many a year—

To sit; and o’er these crowded fields to look,

And the soft-dropping of the shower to hear,

Ourselves so sheltered, e’en a pleasant book 10

Might lie uninjured from the fragrant rain,

For not a drop gets through the bowery leaves;

But dry as housed in my old hut again,

I sit, and troublous Care but half its claim receives.

₁₃₉

₁₄₀ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

XLI.

THE WRYNECK’S NEST.

THAT summer bird its oft-repeated note

Chirps from the dottrel ash, and in the hole

The green woodpecker made in years remote,

It makes its nest. When peeping idlers stroll

In anxious plundering moods, they by and by

The Wryneck’s curious eggs, as white as snow,

While squinting in the hollow tree, espy.

The sitting bird looks up with jetty eye,

And waves her head in terror to and fro,

Speckled and veined with various shades of brown ; 10

And then a hissing noise assails the clown.

Quickly, with hasty terror in his breast,

From the tree’s knotty trunk he slides adown,

And thinks the strange bird guards a serpent’s nest.

_________

XLII.

THE HAPPINESS OF IGNORANCE.

ERE I had known the world, and understood

How many follies Wisdom names its own,

Distinguishing things evil from things good,

₁₄₀ The dread of sin and death—ere I had known

₁₄₁ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

Knowledge, the root of evil—had I been

Left in some lone place where the world is wild,

And trace of troubling man was never seen,

Brought up by Nature as her favourite child,

As born for nought but joy where all rejoice,

Emparadised in ignorance of sin, 10

Where Nature tries with never chiding voice,

Like tender nurse, nought but our smiles to win—

The future, dreamless, beautiful would be;

The present, foretaste of eternity.

________

XLIII.

FOREST FLOWERS.

YE simple weeds, that make the desert gay,

Disdained of all, e’en by the youngster’s eye,

Who lifts his stick, a weapon in his play,

And lops your blossoms as he saunters by,

In mockery of merriment!—Yet I

Hail you, as favourites of my early days;

And every year, as ’mid your haunts I lie,

Some added pleasure claims my lonely gaze:—

Star-pointed thistle, with its ruddy flowers;

Wind-waving rush, left to bewildered ways, 10

Shunning the scene which culture’s toil devours;

Ye thrive in silence where I glad recline,

Sharing with finer blooms Spring’s gentle showers,

That show ye’re prized by better taste than mine.

₁₄₁

₁₄₂ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

XLIV.

THE ASS.

POOR patient creature! how I grieve to see

Thy wants so ill supplied—to see thee strain

And stretch thy tether for the grass, in vain,

Which Heaven’s rain nourishes for all but thee.

The fair green field, the fulness of the plain,

Add to thy hunger; colt and heifer pass,

And roll, as though they mocked thee, on the grass,

Which would be luxury to the bare brown lane

Where thou’rt imprisoned, humble, patient Ass!

Cropping foul weeds, yet scorning to complain. 10

Mercy at first “sent out the wild ass free,”

A ranger “of the mountains;” and what crimes

Did thy progenitors, that thou should’st be

The slave and mockery of later times?

________

XLV.

NOTHINGNESS OF LIFE.

I NEVER pass a venerable tree,

Pining away to nothingness and dust;

Ruin’s vain shades of power I never see,

₁₄₂ Once dedicated to Time’s cheating trust—

₁₄₃ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

But warm Reflection wakes her saddest thought,

And views Life’s vanity in cheerless light,

And sees Earth’s bubbles, youth so eager sought,

Burst into emptiness of lost delight,

And all the pictures of Life’s early day,

Like evening’s striding shadows, haste away. 10

Yet there’s a glimmering of pleasure springs

From such reflections of Earth’s vanity;

We pine and sicken o’er life’s mortal things,

And feel a relish for Eternity.

________

XLVI.

ROUND-OAK SPRING.

SWEET brook! I’ve met thee many a summer’s day,

And ventured fearless in thy shallow flood,

And rambled oft thy sweet unwearied way,

’Neath willows cool that on thy margin stood,

With crowds of partners in my artless play,

Grasshopper, beetle, bee, and butterfly,

That frisked about, as though in merry mood,

To see their old companion sporting by.

Sweet brook! life’s glories once were thine and mine,

Shades clothed thy spring that now doth naked lie, 10

On thy white boiling sand the sweet woodbine

Darkened, and dipt its flowers:—I mark and sigh,

And muse o’er troubles since we met the last,

Like too fond friends whose happiness is past.

₁₄₃

₁₄₄ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

XLVII.

THE MAGIC OF BEAUTY.

AN Imperfection as Perfection’s guest,

Gives greater joy than charms immaculate—

And tawny moles upon a woman’s breast,

Grow very jewels in their fair estate.

So is it where the heart’s conceptions wait

On Beauty as her lacquey—up we climb,

And from the very sun on heaven’s own gate

Snatch a rich jewel gracing common time,

Making earth heaven in our fancy’s dream,

And woman as an idol in esteem, 10

Fairest companion of fair thoughts, akin

To grace’s perfectness in heaven’s own grace.

To worship such therefore can be no sin,

If heaven’s own copy lives in Beauty’s face.

________

XLVIII.

THE MOLE.

RUDE architect! rich instinct’s natural taste

Is thine by heritage.—Thy little mounds,

Bedecking furze-clad heath, and rushy waste,

₁₄₄ And traced with sheep-tracks, shine like pleasure-grounds.

₁₄₅ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

No rude inelegance thy work confounds,

But scenes of picturesque and beautiful

Lie ’mid thy little hills of cushioned thyme,

On which the cow-boy, when his hands are full

Of wild flowers, leans upon his arm at rest,

As though his seat were feathers. When I climb 10

Thy little fragrant mounds, I feel thy guest,

And hail Neglect thy patron, who contrives

Waste spots for thee on Nature’s quiet breast,

Taste loving best where thy still labour thrives.

_________

XLIX.

FIRST SIGHT OF SPRING.

THE hazel-blooms, in threads of crimson hue,

Peep through the swelling buds, foretelling Spring

Ere yet a white-thorn leaf appears in view,

Or March finds throstles pleased enough to sing.

To the old touchwood tree woodpeckers cling

A moment, and their harsh-toned notes renew;

In happier mood, the stockdove claps his wing;

The squirrel sputters up the powdered oak,

With tail cocked o’er his head, and ears erect,

Startled to hear the woodman’s understroke; 10

And with the courage which his fears collect,

He hisses fierce half malice, and half glee—

Leaping from branch to branch about the tree,

In winter’s foliage, moss and lichens, drest.

₁₄₅

₁₄₆ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

L.

EARTH’S ETERNITY.

MAN, Earth’s poor shadow! talks of Earth’s decay:

But hath it nothing of eternal kin?

No majesty that shall not pass away?

No soul of greatness springing up within?

Thought-marks without? hoar shadows of sublime?

Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win

Eternity, stand laughing at old Time

For ages, in the grand ancestral line

Of things eternal, mounting to divine?—

I read Magnificence where ages pay 10

Worship, like conquered foes to the Apennine,

Because they could not conquer. There sits Day,

Too high for Night to come at—mountains shine,

Outpeering Time, too lofty for Decay.

________

LI.

HONESTY.

THERE is a valued, though a stubborn weed,

That blooms but seldom, and is found, but rare,

In sunless places, where it cannot seed—

₁₄₆ Would Earth, for truth’s sake, had more room to spare!

₁₄₇ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

Cant hates it—hypocrites condemn—the herd

Seeking self-interest frown, and pass it by:

’Tis trampled on—’tis bantered. Undeterred,

Though scoffed at, mocked at, yet it doth not die;

But like a diamond for a century lost,

Buried in darkness and obscurity, 10

When found again, it loses not in cost,

But keeps its value and its purity,

By time unsullied—still the prince of gems,

And first of jewels in all diadems.

________

LII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE rich man claims it; but he often buys

Its substitute, that is not what it seems;

While Poverty, ennobled in disguise,

Its simple bloom oft worships and esteems.

Knaves boast possession, but they forge its name;

Mobs laud and praise it, but with them ’tis noise,

Or the mere passport to some hidden game,

Beneath whose garb Self-interest lurks, and lies.

’Tis by the good man only deemed a prize

Too valued to be scoffed at, or oppressed; 10

’Tis evermore respected by the wise,

Though thousands treat it as a common jest:

And that thou may’st not slight so grand a dower,

’Tis Honesty. Go thou, and wear the flower.

₁₄₇

₁₄₈ ^{……………………………………….……………………………..…}

LIII.

SLANDER.

THERE is a viper, that doth hide its head

In the recesses of the human heart,

There is a serpent, that doth make its bed

On manhood’s prime, and God’s own counterpart.

It feeds upon the honours of the great,

It mars the reputation of the just;

It eats its being into worth’s estate,

And levels all distinctions in the dust.

Goodness is smitten by its bitter gibes,

Greatness is wounded by the slime it breeds; 10

It lives the worst of all its evil tribes,

For poisonous actions and for damning deeds.

Nay, Slander, keener than a serpent’s breath,

Poisons far deeper, and yet brings not death.

_________

LIV.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

IT feeds on falsehood, and on clamour lives;

And Truth, like sunshine, dims its watering eyes;

It cannot bear the searching light she gives,

₁₄₈ But in her splendour struggles, writhes, and lies

₁₄₉^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

A crushed and wounded worm, that vainly turns

All ways for rest and ease, yet findeth none.

Of its own venom-breath it wastes and burns

Away, like putrid waters in the sun.

It stains, as footmarks in a frosty morn,

Left on the bruising grass by early swain;— 10

Truth’s spring soon comes, and laughs them all to scorn;

They disappear—the grass is green again;

And hearts that feed the falsehood Slander brings

Are all that feel at last the venom of its stings.

________

LV.

ANTIQUITY.

MYSTERY! thou subtile essence!—Ages gain

New light from darkness; still thy blanks remain;

And Reason tries to chace old Night from thee.

When Chaos fled, thy parent took the key,

Blank Darkness; and the things Age left behind

Are locked for aye in thy unspeaking mind.

Towers, temples, ruins, on and under ground,

So old—so dark—so mystic—so profound—

Old Time, himself so old, is like a child,

And can’t remember when these blocks were piled, 10

Or caverns scooped; and with amazed eye

He seems to pause, like other standers-by,

Half thinking, that the wonders left unknown

Were born in ages older than his own.

₁₄₉

₁₅₀^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LVI.

DECAY.

AMIDST the happiest joy, a shade of grief

Will come;—its mark, in summer time, a leaf,

Tinged with the Autumn’s visible decay,

As pining to forgetfulness away,—

Aye, blank Forgetfulness!—that coldest lot,

To be,—and to have been,—and then be not.

E’en Beauty’s self, love’s essence, heaven’s prime,

Meet for eternity in joys sublime,

Earth’s most divinest,—is a mortal thing,

And nurses Time’s sick Autumn for its Spring; 10

And fades, and fades, till Wonder knows it not,

And Admiration hath all praise forgot;

Coldly forsaking an unheeding past,

To fade, and fall, and die, like common things at last.

________

LVII.

THE FOUNTAIN OF HOPE.

TRUTH old as heaven is, and God is Truth,

And Hope is never old, but still a youth.

When I unclose the volume which began

₁₅₀ Its essence and its interest with man,

₁₅₁^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

I see that mystery unspeakable,

Where Deity as Three Almighty dwell,

And rise above myself o’er Reason’s shrine,

And feel my origin is Love divine;

Older than earth, o’er worlds however high,

An essence to be crushed, but not to die; 10

That like a light hereafter shall arise,

A star or comet, in those mighty skies,

Where God, the sun, smiles on it like a flower,

And bids it live in light ’neath his almighty power.

________

LVIII.

MERIT.

HARD words to vague pretension blast like Death,

And kill its feeble efforts with a breath;

But insults thrown on Merit’s struggling way,

Are helpmates to her journey—not decay.

As fires lie smouldering till the wind sweeps past,

Then burst to flame and kindle with the blast;

So from the throes of envy, hate, and strife,

Genius bursts forth and breathes eternal life.

In vain the taunt would blight, the scoff would sear;

Like cobweb network falls the gibe and sneer. 10

When Genius like a sun, burst from the cloud,

Throws forth her light, her mind is heard aloud;

The Nights of malice into light decay,

And aid her exaltation into Day.

₁₅₁

₁₅₂^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LIX.

SUN-SET.

WELCOME, sweet Eve! thy gently sloping sky,

And softly whispering wind that breathes of rest;

And clouds unlike what Day-light galloped by,

Now stopt as weary, huddling in the west,

Each, by the farewell of Day’s closing eye,

Left with the smiles of heaven on its breast.

Meek nurse of weariness! how sweet to meet

Thy soothing tenderness to none denied;

To hear thy whispering voice—ah, heavenly sweet,

Musing and listening by thy gentle side; 10

Lost to life’s cares, thy coloured skies to view,

Picturing of pleasant worlds unknown to care;

And when our bark the rough sea flounders through,

Warming in hopes its end shall harbour there.

________

LX.

MAY.

NOW comes the bonny May, dancing and skipping

Across the stepping stones of meadow streams;

Bearing no kin to April showers a-weeping,

₁₅₂ But constant Sunshine as her servant seems.

₁₅₃^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

Her heart is up—her sweetness all a-maying,

Streams in her face, like gems on Beauty’s breast;

The swains are sighing all, and well-a-daying,

Love-sick and gazing on their lovely guest.

The sunday paths, to pleasant places leading,

Are graced by couples linking arm in arm; 10

Sweet smiles enjoying, or some book a-reading,

Where Love and Beauty are the constant charm;

For while the bonny May is dancing by,

Beauty delights the ear, and Beauty fills the eye.

________

LXI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

BIRDS sing and build, and Nature scorns alone

On May’s young festival to be a widow;

The children too have pleasures all their own,

In gathering lady-smocks along the meadow.

The little brook sings loud among the pebbles,

So very loud, that water-flowers, which lie

Where many a silver curdle boils and dribbles,

Dance too with joy as it goes singing by.

Among the pasture mole-hills maidens stoop,

To pluck the luscious marjoram for their bosoms; 10

The greensward’s littered o’er with buttercups,

And white-thorns, they are breaking down with blossoms!

’Tis Nature’s livery for the bonny May,

Who keeps her court, and all have holiday.

₁₅₃

₁₅₄^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXII.

MAY, continued.

PRINCESS of Months!—so Nature’s choice ordains,

And Lady of the Summer still she reigns;

In spite of April’s youth, who charms in tears,

And rosy June, who wins with blushing face;

July, sweet shepherdess, who wreathes the shears

Of shepherds with her flowers of winning grace;

And sun-tanned August, with her swarthy charms,

The beautiful and rich; and pastoral gay

September, with her pomp of fields and farms;

And wild November’s sybilline array;— 10

In spite of Beauty’s calendar, the Year

Garlands with Beauty’s prize the bonny May.

Where’er she goes, fair Nature hath no peer,

And Months do lose their queen when she’s away.

________

LXIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

UP like a princess starts the merry Morning,

In draperies of many coloured cloud;

And Sky-larks, minstrels of the early dawning,

₁₅₄ Pipe forth their hearty anthems long and loud.

₁₅₅^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

The bright enamoured Sunshine goes a-Maying,

And every flower his laughing eye beguiles;

And on the milk-maid’s rosy face a-playing,

Pays court to Beauty in its softest smiles.

For May’s divinity of Joy begun,

Adds life and lustre to the golden sun; 10

And all of life, beneath its glory straying,

Is by May’s beauty into worship won;—

Till golden Eve ennobles all the west,

And Day goes blushing like a bride to rest.

________

LXIV.

TO CHARLES LAMB.

FRIEND Lamb! thou choosest well, to love the lore

Of our old by-gone bards, whose racy page

Rich mellowing Time makes sweeter than before

It ever was; for the long-garnered store

Of fruitage is right luscious in its age,

Although to Fashion’s taste austere. What more

Can be expected from the popular rage

For tinsel gauds, that are to gold preferred?

Me much it grieved; for I did long presage

Vain Fashion’s foils had every heart deterred 10

From the warm homely phrase of other days,

Until thy muse’s ancient voice I heard.

And now right fain, yet fearing, honest Bard,

I pause to greet thee with so poor a praise.

₁₅₅

₁₅₆^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXV.

BOSTON CHURCH.

MAJESTIC pile! thy rich and splendid tower

O’erlooks the ocean with aspiring pride,

Daring the insults rude of wind and shower,

And greeting Time with presence dignified.

Firm as a rock yet seems thy massy power,

Though thou hast seen life’s mightiest thrust aside,

And Ages crumble at thy feet in dust;

And the imperious Sea, as rightful dower,

Claim thousands of wrecked ships, to hold in trust,

As dark Oblivion’s harvests of the storm. 10

Waves yet may lash, and the loud hurricane

Threaten thy cloud-capt dwelling, and deform

The sky in glooms around thee,—all is vain:

Empires may pass away, but thou’lt remain—

________

LXVI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

SMILING in Sunshine, as the storm frowns by,

Whose dreadful rage seems to thy quiet thrall

As small birds’ twitterings, that beneath thee fly.

₁₅₆ Winds call aloud, and they may louder call,

₁₅₇^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

For, deaf to Danger’s voice, sublime and grand

Thou tower’st in thy old majesty o’er all.

Tempests, that break the tall masts like a wand,

Howl their rage weary round thee; and no more

Impression make, than summer winds that bow

The little trembling weeds upon thy wall. 10

Lightnings have blazed their centuries round thy brow,

And left no print-marks:—so in shadows hoar

Time decks and spares thee, till that doom is hurled

That burns the ocean dry, and wrecks the world.

________

LXVII.

IZAAC WALTON.

SOME blame thee, honest Izaac! aye, and deem

Thy pastime cruel, by the silent stream

Of the unwooded Lea: but he, that warms

In eloquence of grief o’er suffering worms,

Throws by his mourning quill, and hunts the hare

Whole hours to death, yet feels no sorrow there.

Yet this mock sentimental man of moods

On every pastime but his own intrudes:—

Not so with thee, thou man of angel-mind!

That, like thy Master, gentle was, and kind; 10

Fit emblem of the prime apostles’ days,

And worthy even of the Scripture praise;

For men of God’s own heart must surely be

Those honest souls that most resemble thee.

₁₅₇

₁₅₈^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXVIII.

NUTTING.

THE Sun had stooped, his westward clouds to win,

Like weary traveller seeking for an inn;

When from the hazelly wood we glad descried

The ivied gateway by the pasture side.

Long had we sought for nuts amid the shade,

Where Silence fled the rustle that we made;

When torn by briars, and brushed by sedges rank,

We left the wood, and on the velvet bank

Of short sward pasture-ground we sat us down,

To shell our nuts before we reached the town. 10

The near-hand stubble-field, with mellow glower,

Showed the dimmed blaze of poppies still in flower;

And sweet the mole-hills were we sat upon—

Again the thyme’s in bloom, but where is Pleasure gone?

________

LXIX.

THE WOODMAN.

NOW evening comes, and from the new-formed hedge

The woodman rustles in his leathern guise;

Hiding in ditches, lined with bristling sedge,

₁₅₈ His bill and mittens from Theft’s meddling eyes;

₁₅₉^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

Within his wallet storing many a pledge

Of flowers and boughs from early-sprouting trees,

And painted pooties from the ivied hedge,

About its mossy roots,—his boys to please,

Who wait with merry joy his coming home,

Anticipating presents such as these 10

Gained far a-field, where they, or night or morn,

Find no school leisure long enough to go;

Where flowers but rarely from their stalks are torn,

And birds scarce lose a nest the season through.

________

LXX.

SHADOWS.

THE fairest summer hath its sudden showers;

The clearest sky is never without clouds;

And in the painted meadow’s host of flowers

Some lurking weed a poisonous death enshrouds.

Sweet days, that upon golden sunshine spring,

A gloomy night in mourning waits to stain;

The honey-bees are girt with sharpest sting,

And sweetest joys oft breed severest pain.

While like to Autumn’s storms, sudden and brief,

Mirth’s parted lips oft close in silent grief, 10

Amid this checkered life’s disastrous state,

Still Hope lives green amid the desolate;

As Nature, in her happy livery, waves

O’er ancient ruins, palaces, and graves.

₁₅₉

₁₆₀^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXXI.

MORNING PLEASURES.

THE dewy virtues of the early morn

Breathe rich of health, and lead the mind to joy;

While, like a thrilling pleasure newly born,

Each little hamlet wakes its shouting boy

Right earlily, to wander out a-field,

Brushing the dew-drops from the bending corn,

To see what nests are in the hedge-row thorn;

What cuckoo-flowers the neighbouring pastures yield;

Where, ’mid the dark dog-mercury that abounds

Round each moss stump, the woodlark hides her nest. 10

The delicate hare-bell, that her home surrounds,

Bows its soft fragrance o’er her spotted breast,

Till startled, from the boy’s rude step she flies,

Who turns the weeds away, and vainly seeks the prize.

________

LXXII.

HAY-MAKING.

’TIS hay-time; and the red-complexioned Sun

Was scarcely up, ere blackbirds had begun,

Along the meadow-hedges here and there,

₁₆₀ To sing loud songs to the sweet-smelling air,

₁₆₁^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

Whose scent of flowers, and grass, and grazing cow,

Flings o’er one’s senses streams of fragrance now;

While in some pleasant nook the swain and maid

Lean o’er their rakes, and loiter in the shade,

Or bend a minute o’er the bridge, and throw

Crumbs in their leisure to the fish below. 10

Hark at that happy shout, and song between!

’Tis Pleasure’s birth-day, in her meadow-scene.

What joy seems half so rich, from pleasure won,

As the loud laugh of maidens in the sun!

________

LXXIII.

STEPPING STONES.

THOSE stepping-stones, that cross the meadow-streams,

Look picturesque amid Spring’s golden gleams,

Where strides the traveller with a weary pace;

And boy, with laughing leisure in his face,

Sits on the midmost stone, in very whim,

To catch the struttles, that beneath him swim.

Even stones across the hollow lakes are bare,

And winter floods no more rave dangers there;

But, ’mid the scum left where it roared and fell,

The schoolboy hunts to find the pooty shell. 10

Yet there the boisterous geese, with golden broods,

Hiss fierce and daring in their summer moods:

The boys pull off their hats, while passing by,

In vain to fright—themselves being forced to fly.

₁₆₁

₁₆₂^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXXIV.

PLEASANT PLACES.

OLD stone-pits, with veined ivy overhung;

Wild crooked brooks, o’er which is rudely flung

A rail, and plank that bends beneath the tread;

Old narrow lanes, where trees meet over-head;

Path-stiles, on which a steeple we espy,

Peeping and stretching in the distant sky;

Heaths overspread with furze-bloom’s sunny shine,

Where Wonder pauses to exclaim, “Divine!”

Old ponds, dim shadowed with a broken tree;—

These are the picturesque of Taste to me; 10

While painting Winds, to make complete the scene,

In rich confusion mingle every green,

Waving the sketchy pencils in their hands,

Shading the living scenes to fairy lands.

________

LXXV.

THE HAIL-STORM IN JUNE, 1831.

DARKNESS came o’er like chaos; and the Sun,

As startled with the terror, seemed to run

With quickened dread behind the beetling cloud;

₁₆₂ The old wood groaned, like Nature in her shroud;

₁₆₃^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

And each old rifted oak-tree’s mossy arm

Seemed shrinking from the presence of the storm.

As it still nearer came, they shook beyond

Their former fears, as if to burst the bond

Of earth, that bound them to that ancient place,

Where Danger seemed to threaten all their race. 10

They had withstood all tempests since their birth,

Yet now seemed bowing to the very earth;

Like reeds they bent, like drunken men they reeled,

And man for safety ran and sought the open field.

________

LXXVI.

ETERNITY OF TIME.

AMAZING, grand eternity of Time!

Where things of greatest standing grow sublime.

Less from long fames, and universal praise,

Than wearing as the “ancient of old days.”

“Old days,” once spoken, seems but half the way

To reach that night-leap of eternal Day.

Miltonic centuries, each a mighty boast—

Shakspearian eras—worlds, without their host,

Engraved upon the adamant of fame

By pens of steel, in characters of flame— 10

To which the forest-oaks’ eternal stay

Are but as points and commas in their way,—

These less than nothings are to Ruin’s doom,

When Suns grow dark, and Earth a vast and lonely tomb.

₁₆₃

₁₆₄^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXXVII.

THE FAIRY RINGS.

HERE on the greensward, ’mid the old mole-hills,

Where ploughshares never come to hurt the things

Antiquity hath charge of,—Fear instils

Her footsteps, and the ancient fairy rings

Shine black, and fresh, and round—the gipsy’s fire,

Left yesternight, scarce leaves more proof behind

Of midnight sports, when they from day retire,

Than in these rings my fancy seems to find

Of fairy revels; and I stoop to see

Their little footmarks in each circling stain, 10

And think I hear them, in their summer glee,

Wishing for night, that they may dance again;

Till shepherds’ tales, told ’neath the leaning tree

While shunning showers, seem Bible-truths to me—

________

LXXVIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

AYE, almost Scripture-truths!—My poorer mind

Grows into worship of these mysteries,

While Fancy doth her ancient scrolls unbind

₁₆₄ That Time hath hid in countless centuries;

₁₆₅^{…………………………………………………………..……………..}

And when the morning’s mist doth leave behind

The fungus round, and mushroom white as snow,

They strike me, to romantic moods inclined,

As shadows of things modelled long ago:

Halls, palaces, and marble columned domes,

And modem shades of fairies’ ancient homes, 10

Erected in these rings and pastures still,

For midnight balls and revelry; and then

Left like the ruins of all ancient skill,

To wake the wonder of mere common men.

________

LXXIX.

THE MORNING WIND.

THERE’S more than music in this early wind,

Awaking like a bird refreshed from sleep;

And joy that Adam might in Eden find,

When he with angels did communion keep.

It breathes all balm and incense from the sky,

Blessing the husbandman with freshening powers;

Joy’s manna from its wings doth fall and lie,

Harvests for early wakers with the flowers.

The very grass in Joy’s devotion moves;

Cowslips, in adoration and delight, 10

This way and that bow to the breath they love

Of the young Winds, that with their dew-pearls play,

Till smoking chimneys sicken the young light,

And Feeling’s fairy visions fade away.

₁₆₅

₁₆₆^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXXX.

THE FLOOD.

ON Lolham brigs, in wild and lonely mood,

I’ve seen the winter floods their gambols play

Through each old arch, that trembled while I stood

Bent o’er its walls to watch the dashing spray,

As its old stations would be washed away.

Crash came the ice against the piers, and then

A shudder jarred the arches; yet once more

It breasted raving waves, and stood again

To wait the shock, as stubborn as before.

White foam, brown crested with the russet soil, 10

As washed from new ploughed lands, would dart beneath,

Then round and round in thousand eddies boil

On t’other side;—then pause, as if for breath,

One minute—then engulphed—like life in death.

________

LXXXI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

WAVES trough—rebound—and furious boil again,

Like plunging monsters rising underneath,

Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane,

₁₆₆ A moment catching at a surer breath,

₁₆₇^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

Then plunging headlong down, and on

Each following whirls the shadow of the last;

And other monsters rise when those are gone,

Crest their fringed waves—plunge onward, and are past.

The chill air comes around me oceanly,

From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread; 10

Strange birds, like snow-spots o’er the whizzing sea,

Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled.

On roars the flood, all restless to be free,

Like Trouble wandering to Eternity.

________

LXXXII.

SHEPHERD’S HUT.

THE shepherd’s hut, propt by the double ash,

Huge in its bulk and old in mossy age,

Shadowing the dammed-up brook, where, plash and plash,

The little mills did younkers’ ears engage—

Delightful hut, rude as romances old,

Where huge old stones make each an easy chair,

With brake and fern for luxuries manifold,

And flint and steel are all that Want needs there.

The light was struck, and then the happy ring

₁₆₇ Crouched round the blaze—O those were happy times! 10

₁₆₈^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

Some telling tales, and others urged to sing

Themes of old things, in rude yet feeling rhymes,

That raised the laugh, or stirred the stifled sigh,

Till Pity listened in each vacant eye.

________

LXXXIII.

SHEPHERD’S HUT, continued.

THOSE rude old tales!—man’s memory augurs ill,

Thus to forget the fragments of old days,

Those long old songs;—their sweetness haunts me still,

Nor did they perish for my lack of praise.

But old disciples of the pasture sward,

Rude chroniclers of ancient minstrelsy,

The shepherds, vanished all; and Disregard

Left their old music, like a vagrant bee,

For summer’s breeze to murmur o’er, and die.

Still in these spots my Mind, and Ear, and Eye, 10

Turn listeners—till the very wind prolongs

The theme, as wishing, in its depths of joy,

To recollect the music of old songs,

And meet the hut that blessed me when a boy.

₁₆₈

₁₆₉^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LXXXIV.

A WOODLAND SEAT.

WITHIN this pleasant wood, beside the lane,

Let’s sit, and rest us from the burning sun,

And hide us in the leaves, and entertain

An hour away;—to watch the wood-brook run

Through heaps of leaves, drop dribbling after drop,

Pining for freedom, till it climbs along

In eddying fury o’er the foamy top;

And then loud laughing sings its whimpling song,

Kissing the misty dewberry by its side,

With eager salutations, and in joy; 10

Making the flag-leaves dance in graceful pride,

Giving and finding joy.—Here we employ

An hour right profitably, thus to see

Life may meet joys where few intruders be.

________

LXXXV.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

OBSERVE the flowers around us, how they live,

Not only for themselves, as we may feel,

But for the joy which they to others give;

₁₆₉ For Nature never will her gifts conceal

₁₇₀^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

From those who love to seek them.—Here amid

These trees, how many blooms disclose their pride;

From the unthinking rustic only hid,

Who never turns him from the road aside,

To look for beauties which he values not.

It gives one greater zest to feel the joys 10

We meet in this sweet solemn-suited spot;

And with high ecstacy one’s mind employs,

To bear the worst that fickle Life prepares,

Finding her sweets are common as her cares.

________

LXXXVI.

A WOODLAND SEAT, continued.

IN every trifle something lives to please

Or to instruct us. Every weed and flower

Heirs Beauty as a birth-right, by degrees

Of more or less; though Taste alone hath power

To see and value what the rest pass by.

This common Dandelion—mark how fine

Its hue!—the shadow of the Day’s proud eye

Glows not more rich of gold:—that nettle there,

Trod down by careless rustics every hour—

Search but its slighted blooms, kings cannot wear 10

Robes prankt with half the splendour of a flower

Pencilled with hues of workmanship divine,—

Bestowed to simple things, denied to power,

And sent to gladden hearts as low as mine.

₁₇₀

₁₇₁^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

ON LEAVING THE COTTAGE OF MY BIRTH.

{engraving of Helpston cottage}

I’VE left my own old Home of Homes,

Green fields, and every pleasant place:

The Summer, like a stranger comes,

I pause—and hardly know her face.

I miss the hazel’s happy green,

The blue-bell’s quiet hanging blooms,

Where envy’s eye is never seen,

Where tongue of malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,

Mole-hills, and rabbit-tracks, that lead 10

Through besom-ling and teasel burrs,

₁₇₁ That spread a wilderness indeed:

₁₇₂^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

The woodland oaks, and all below,

That their white powder’d branches shield,

The mossy paths—the very crow

Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair,

That seems to feel itself alone;

I here find music,—here, and there,

From hawthorn-hedge and orchard come. 20

I hear—but, all is strange and new:

I sat on my old bench, last June;

The sailing puddock’s shrill “pee-lew,”

O’er Royce-wood, seemed a sweeter tune.

I walk adown the narrow close,

The nightingale is singing now;

But, like to me, she seems at loss

For “Royce-wood,” and its shielding bough!

I lean upon the window sill,

The trees and summer happy seem, 30

Green, sunny green they shine—but still

My heart goes far away, to dream

Of happiness!—and thoughts arise,

With home-bred pictures, many a one—

Green lanes, that shut out burning skies,

And old crook’d stiles to rest upon.

Above them hangs the maple-tree,

Below, grass swells in velvet hill;

And little foot-prints, sweet to see,

₁₇₂ Are seeking sweeter places still: 40

₁₇₃^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

With, by and by, a brook to cross,

O’er which a narrow arch is thrown:

No brook is here—I feel the loss

From nature’s haunts, and all alone—

The stone-pit, whose old shelving side

Grew hanging rocks in my esteem;

And then, the prospect stretching wide

From “Langley-bush;”—and so I seem

Alone! and in a stranger scene,

Far, far from spots my heart esteems— 50

The closes, with their ancient green,

Heaths, woods, and pastures, running streams.

The hawthorns here are hung with May,

But still they look of duller green;

The sun e’en seems to lose its way,

Nor knows the quarter it is in.

I dwell on trifles, like a child—

I feel as ill becomes a man;

And yet my thoughts, like weedlings wild,

Grow up, and blossom where they can: 60

They turn to places known so long,

And feel that joys were dwelling there,

So home-fed pleasure fills my song

That hath no present joy to share.

Northborough, June 20,1832.

₁₇₃

₁₇₄^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

TO AN EARLY FRIEND.

THOU’ST been to me a friend indeed,

I’ve proved it long ago;

I once did kindness deeply need,

And thou did’st thine bestow;

And shall my bosom be its grave,

That proved thy help divine?

No! one return true worth shall have,

Though ill requiting thine.

When some were coy, and fear’d to praise,

Thine fearlessly was given; 10

Thy smile that cheer’d my early lays,

Was like a smile from Heaven.

When lone I droop’d in drear distress,

From pride and scoffers rude,

Thy helping hand was held to bless—

I took it and pursued.

Thy praise did drooping hopes renew,

That shrunk from feared disdain;

And joys like blossoms hung with dew,

Held up their heads again; 20

Thy friendship met my heart as such,

Whence heart-felt joys ensue,

Nor have they been the world’s so much,

₁₇₄ To prophesy untrue.

₁₇₅^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

I prove thee now as none of those

Too often proved before,

That promise peace, with hopeless woes

To disappoint the more.

As sun-beams in a winter’s sky

Smile warm, and chill again; 30

These rude pretenders flirted by

With promise void and vain.

I have been teased with many a form

Of friendship idly told,

Intruding language uttered warm,

And soon as uttered—cold;

Hope’s blighted blossoms have been mine,

And these to many fall;

But I have met and found in thine,

A recompense for all. 40

The world need not know whom thou art,

’Twill add no fame to thee;

’Twould deem thy deeds a patron’s part,

But they are more to me.

And should’st thou doubt the nameless birth,

To whom these lines belong;

Then think whose heart has proved thy worth,

And thine will claim the song.

₁₇₅ THE END.

^{……………………………………………………………..……………..}

LONDON:

PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON,

ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.