My love, to hear, and recompense my love. hue, The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue: Here is the pleasant place, And nothing wanting is, save she, alas! WILLIAM DRUMMOND. SONG TO MAY. Max! queen of blossoms, And fulfilling flowers, With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours? Wilt thou have pipe and reed, Blown in the open mead? Or to the lute give heed In the green bowers? Thou hast no need of us, Or pipe or wire, That hast the golden bee Ripened with fire; And many thousand more Songsters, that thee adore, Filling earth's grassy floor With new desire. MAY. I FEEL a newer life in every gale; The winds, that fan the flowers, sail, Thou hast thy mighty herds, Tame, and free livers; Doubt not, thy music too In the deep rivers; And the whole plumy flight, Warbling the day and nightUp at the gates of light, See, the lark quivers ! The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls From his blue throne of air, Beauty is budditg there; When with the jacinth Coy fountains are tressed; And for the mournful bird Greenwoods are dressed, That did for Tereus pine; Then shall our songs be thine, To whom our hearts incline: May, be thou blessed ! LORD THUELOW The waving verdure rolls along the plain, And the wide forest weaves, To welcome back its playful mates again, A canopy of leaves; about 1250. Of war and fair women Ewe bleateth after lamb; Loweth calf after cow; Bullock starteth, buck departeth; Merry sing, cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo; Well singeth the cuckoo- Sing ever, stop never, Cuckoo, cuckoo; Sing, cuckoo! Modern Version. ANONYMOUS, The steeds rushing on; THEY COME! THE MERRY SUMMER MONTHS. They come! the merry summer months of beauty, song, and flowers; They come! the gladsome months that bring thick leafiness to bowers. Up, up, my heart! and walk abroad; fling MORNING IN LONDON. cark and care aside; Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peace Earth has not anything to show more fair: ful waters glide ; Dull would he be of soul who could pass by Or, underneath the shadow vast of patri A sight so touching in its majesty: archal tree, This city now doth, like a garment, wear Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, rapt tranquility. Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie The grass is soft, its velvet touch is grateful Open unto the fields, and to the sky, to the hand; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. And, like the kiss of maiden love, the breeze Never did sun more beautifully steep, is sweet and bland; In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill; The daisy and the buttercup are nodding Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! courteously ; The river glideth at his own sweet will; It stirs their blood with kindest love, to bless Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; and welcome thee: And all that mighty heart is lying still! And mark how with thine own thin locksWILLIAM WORDS WORTH. they now are silvery grayThat blissful breeze is wantoning, and whis pering, “Be gay!” SAXON SONG OF SUMMER. Summer is a coming in, Loud sing, cuckoo; There is no cloud that sails along the ocean of yon sky, But hath its own winged mariners to give it melody : Thou seest their glittering fans outspread, all gleaming like red gold; And hark! with shrill pipe musical, their merry course they hold. SHAKESPEARE. God bless them all, those little ones, who, far And winking Mary-buds begin above this earth, To ope their golden eyes; Can make a scoff of its mean joys, and vent With every thing that pretty bin, a nobler mirth. My lady sweet, arise ; Arise, arise ! But soft ! mine ear upcaught a sound, -from yonder wood it came! The spirit of the dim green glade did breathe his own glad name ;Yes, it is he! the hermit bird, that, apart TO THE SKYLARK. from all his kind, Slow spells his beads monotonous to the soft Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! western wind; Bird thou never wert, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! he sings again,—his notes That from heaven, or near it, are void of art; Pourest thy full heart But simplest strains do soonest sound the In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. deep founts of the heart. Higher still and higher, Good Lord! it is a gracious boon for thought From the earth thou springest, crazed wight like me, Like a cloud of fire ; To smell again these summer flowers beneath The blue deep thou wingest, this summer tree! And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever To suck once more in every breath their lit singest. tle souls away, And feed my fancy with fond dreams of In the golden lightning youth's bright summer day, Of the setting sun, When, rushing forth like untamed colt, the O'er which clouds are brightening, reckless, truant boy Thou dost float and run; Wandered through greenwoods all day long, Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. a mighty heart of joy! The pale, purple even I'm sadder now-I have had cause; but O! Melts around thy flight; I 'm proud to think Like a star of heaven, That each pure joy-fount, loved of yore, I yet In the broad daylight, delight to drink ;Leaf, blossom, blade, hill , valley, stream, the Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. calm, unclouded sky, Still mingle music with my dreams, as in the Keen as are the arrows days gone by. Of that silver sphere, When summer's loveliness and light fall round Whose intense lamp narrows me dark and cold, In the white dawn clear, I'll bear indeed life's heaviest curse, –a heart Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. that hath waxed old ! WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven Hark—hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, is overflowed. And Phæbus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs What thou art we know not; On chaliced flowers that lies; What is most like thee?. From rainbow-clouds there flow not What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain ? As from thy presence showers a rain of What fields, or waves, or mountains ? melody. What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignor- ance of pain ? With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shades of annoyance not: Never come near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking, or asleep Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream; her bower: Or how could thy notes flow in such a crys- tal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter from the view : With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of sad- dest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; Makes faint with too much sweet these If we were things born heavy-wing'd thieves. Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come On the twinkling grass, Better than all measures Of delightful sound; Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth Better than all treasures surpass. That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listen- ing now. Matched with thine would be all PERCY BYSSUE SHELLEY, But an empty vauntÀ thing wherein we feel there is some hid den want. near. |