Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, From my lips would flow The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 288* Percy Bysshe Shelley THE GREEN LINNET Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed In this sequester'd nook how sweet And flowers and birds once more to greet, My last year's friends together. One have I mark'd, the happiest guest In all this covert of the blest: Hail to Thee, far above the rest 289* While birds and butterflies and flowers A Life, a Presence like the air, Amid yon tuft of hazel trees That twinkle to the gusty breeze There! where the flutter of his wings My dazzled sight he oft deceives- He mock'd and treated with disdain William Wordsworth TO THE CUCKOO O blithe new-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice: O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice? While I am lying on the grass From hill to hill it seems to pass, Though babbling only to the vale Thou bringest unto me a tale Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same whom in my school-boy days I listen'd to; that Cry Which made me look a thousand ways In bush and tree and sky. To seek thee did I often rove And I can listen to thee yet; That golden time again. O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial faery place, That is fit home for Thee! William Wordsworth 290 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beechen green and shadows numberless, 0, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! beaker full of the warm South, 0 for a Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a muséd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain- Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! |