Or a leverock build her nest:
Here give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love:
Thus free from lawsuits, and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice:
Or with my Bryan and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford Brook ;
There sit by him, and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set:
There bid good morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
Now daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight;
The cuckoo now on every tree,
Sings cuckoo! cuckoo!
WHEN apple-trees in blossom are,
And cherries of a silken white;
And king-cups deck the meadows fair;
And daffodils in brooks delight;
When golden wall-flowers bloom around,
And purple violets scent the ground,
And lilac 'gins to show her bloom,—
We then may say the May is come.
When happy shepherds tell their tale
Under the tender leafy tree;
And all adown the grassy vale
The mocking cuckoo chanteth free;
And Philomel, with liquid throat,
Doth pour the welcome, warbling note,
That had been all the Winter dumb,-
We then may say the May is come.
When fishes leap in silver stream,
And tender corn is springing high, And banks are warm with sunny beam,
And twittering swallows cleave the sky,
And forest bees are humming near,
And cowslips in boys' hats appear,
And maids do wear the meadow's bloom,
We then may say the May is come.
SPRING MORNING.
COME hither, come hither, and view the face
Of Nature, enrobed in her vernal grace.
By the hedgerow wayside flowers are springing;
On the budding elms the birds are singing;
And up-up-up to the gates of heaven
Mounts the lark, on the wings of her rapture driven;
The voice of the streamlet is fresh and loud;
On the sky there is not a speck of cloud:
Come hither, come hither, and join with me,
In the season's delightful jubilee !
Come hither, come hither, and guess with me,
How fair and how fruitful the year will be!
Look into the pasture-grounds o'er the pale,
And behold the foal with its switching tail,
About and abroad, in its mirth it flies,
With its long black forelocks about its eyes;
Or bends its neck down with a stretch,
The daisy's earliest flowers to reach.
See! as on by the hawthorn fence we pass,
How the sheep are nibbling the tender grass,
Or holding their heads to the sunny ray,
As if their hearts, like its smile, were gay;
While the chattering sparrows, in and out,
Fly the shrubs, and the trees, and roofs about,
And sooty rooks, loudly cawing, roam,
With sticks and straws, to their woodland home.
How still the morning of the hallowed day!
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed
The plough-boy's whistle, and the milk-maid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers,
That yestermorn bloomed waving in the breeze.
The faintest sounds attract the ear--the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep sunk glen ;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.
STRONG climber of the mountain's side,
Though thou the vale disdain,
Yet walk with me where hawthorns hide
The wonders of the lane.
High o'er the rushy springs of Don
The stormy gloom is rolled;
The moorland hath not yet put on
His purple, green, and gold.
But here the titling spreads his wing,
Where dewy daisies gleam;
And here the sunflower of the Spring
Burns bright in morning's beam.
|