Nature

I heard a bird at dawn
Singing sweetly on a tree,
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea;
But I didn't listen to him,
For he didn't sing to me.

I didn't listen to him,
For he didn't sing to me
That the dew was on the lawn
And the wind was on the lea;
I was singing at the time
Just as prettily as he.

I was singing all the time,
Just as prettily as he,
About the dew upon the lawn
And the wind upon the lea;
So I didn't listen to him
And he sang upon a tree.

My pretty flower,
How cam'st thou here?
Around thee all
Is sad and sere,
The brown leaves tell
Of winter's breath,
And all but thou
Of doom and death.

The naked forest
Shivering sighs,
On yonder hill
The snow-wreath lies,
And all is bleak
Then say, sweet flower,
Whence cam'st thou here
In such an hour?

No tree unfolds its timid bud
Chill pours the hill-side's lurid flood
The tuneless forest all is dumb
Whence then, fair violet, didst thou come?

Spring hath not scattered yet her flowers,
But lingers still in southern bowers;
No gardener's art hath cherished thee,
For wild and lone thou springest free.

Thou springest here to man unknown,
Waked into life by God alone!
Sweet flower thou tell...

I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,
Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;
And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun...

He.    Ah, the bird-like fluting
Through the ash-tops yonder,
Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting
What sweet thoughts, I wonder?
Fine-pearled notes that surely
Gather, dewdrop-fashion,
Deep-down in some heart which purely
Secretes globuled passion,
Passion insuppressive,
Such is piped, for certain;
Love, no doubt, nay, love excessive
’Tis your ash-tops curtain.

Would your ash-tops open
We might spy the player,
Seek and find some sense which no pen
Yet from singer, sayer,
Ever has extracted:
Never, to my knowledge,
Yet has pedantry enacted
That, in Cupid’s College,
Just this variation
Of the old, old yearning
Should by plain speech have salvation,
Yield new men new learning.

“Love!” but what love, ...

We used to fear the lonely road
That twisted round the hill;
It dipped down to the river-way,
And passed the haunted mill,
And then crept on, until it reached
The churchyard, green and still.

No pipers ever took that road,
No gipsies, brown and gay;
No shepherds with their gentle flocks,
No loads of scented hay;
No market-waggons jingled by
On any Saturday.

The dog-wood there flung wide its stars,
In April, silvery sweet;
The squirrels crossed that path all day
On tiny flying feet;
The wild, brown rabbits knew each turn,
Each shadowy safe retreat.

And there the golden-belted bee
Sang his sweet summer song,
The crickets chirped there to the moon
With steady note and strong;
Till cold and silence wrapped them round...

My love for thee is like a winged seed
    Blown from the heart of thy rare beauty's flower,
    And deftly guided by some breezy power
To fall and rest, where I should never heed,
In deepest caves of memory. There, indeed,
    With virtue rife of many a sunny hoar, -
    Ev'n making cold neglect and darkness dower
Its roots with life, - swiftly it 'gan to breed,
Till now wide-branching tendrils it outspreads
    Like circling arms, to prison its own prison,
Fretting the walls with blooms by myriads,
    And blazoning in my brain full summer-season:
Thy face, whose dearness presence had not taught.
In absence multiplies, and fills all thought.

Once more the gate behind me falls;
Once more before my face
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
That stand within the chace.

Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke;
And ah! with what delighted eyes
I turn to yonder oak.

For when my passion first began,
Ere that, which in me burn'd,
The love, that makes me thrice a man,
Could hope itself return'd;

To yonder oak within the field
I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.

For oft I talk'd with him apart
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarized a heart,
And answer'd with a voice.

Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven
None else could understand;
I found him garrulously given,
A babbler in...

Winter is cold-hearted
    Spring is yea and nay,
Autumn is a weather-cock
    Blown every way:
Summer days for me
When every leaf is on its tree;

When Robin's not a beggar,
    And Jenny Wren's a bride,
And larks hang singing, singing, singing,
    Over the wheat-fields wide,
    And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
    Swings from side to side,

And blue-black beetles transact business,
    And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
    That no time be lost,
And moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive.

Before green apples blush,
    Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
    Is worth a month in town;
    Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag...

Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.

At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee hummeth
About the moss'd headstone:
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
The hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.

Before my drift-wood fire I sit,
And see, with every waif I burn,
Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.
O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?
Did I not watch from them the light
Of sunset on my towers in Spain,
And see, far off, uploom in sight
The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?

Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's vales of song and spring,
And did I pass, with grazing keel,
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?

Have I not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,
The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla Khan?

Did land winds blow from jas...

Nevermore at doorways that are barken
Shall the madcap wind knock and the moonlight;
Nor the circle which thou once didst darken,
Shine with footsteps of the neighbouring moonlight,
Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.

Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,
Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,
Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;
Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,
Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces.

And no more, between the savage wonder
Of the sunset and the moon's up-coming,
Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, under
Thy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the humming
Of the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder.

Oft the Satyr-spirit, beauty-drunken,
Of the Spring called; and the music measure
Of thy sap mad...

The sultry day it wears away,
And o'er the distant leas
The mist again, in purple stain,
Falls moist on flower and trees:
His home to find, the weary hind
Glad leaves his carts and ploughs;
While maidens fair, with bosoms bare,
Go coolly to their cows

The red round sun his work has done,
And dropp'd into his bed;
And sweetly shin'd, the oaks behind,
His curtain fring'd with red:
And step by step the night has crept,
And day, as loth, retires;
But clouds, more dark, night's entrance mark,
Till day's last spark expires.

Pride of the vales, the nightingales
Now charm the oaken grove;
And loud and long, with amorous tongue,
They try to please their love:
And where the rose reviving blows
Upon the swelter'd bower,
I'll take...

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be
To Winters cold and cruel part?
When he sets the rivers free,
Thou dost still lock up thy heart; -
Thou that shouldst outlast the snow,
But in the whiteness of thy brow?

Scorn and cold neglect are made
For winter gloom and winter wind,
But thou wilt wrong the summer air,
Breathing it to words unkind, -
Breath which only should belong
To love, to sunlight, and to song!

When the little buds unclose.
Red, and white, and pied, and blue,
And that virgin flow'r, the rose,
Opes her heart to hold the dew,
Wilt thou lock thy bosom up
With no jewel in its cup?

Let not cold December sit
Thus in Love's peculiar throne:
Brooklets are not prison'd now,
But crystal frosts are all agone,
And that wh...

THE COMING IN OF THE "MERMAIDEN."

The moon is bleached as white as wool,
And just dropping under;
Every star is gone but three,
And they hang far asunder, -
There's a sea-ghost all in gray,
A tall shape of wonder!

I am not satisfied with sleep, -
The night is not ended.
But look how the sea-ghost comes,
With wan skirts extended,
Stealing up in this weird hour,
When light and dark are blended.

A vessel! To the old pier end
Her happy course she's keeping;
I heard them name her yesterday:
Some were pale with weeping;
Some with their heart-hunger sighed,
She's in, - and they are sleeping.

O! now with fancied greetings blest,
They comfort their long aching:
The sea of sleep hath borne to them
What would not come...

Time sets his footprints on our little Earth,
    And, walk he ne'er so softly, some sweet thing
Falls 'neath each foot-fall, crush'd amid its mirth,
    Tracking the course of Life's short wandering,
With fallen remnants of its mortal part,
    Freeing the soul, but weighing down the heart.

Thou flower of Love! thou little treasury
    Of gentleness, and purity, and grace!
What hidden virtue hath Death reft from thee--
    What unseen essence melted into space?
For now thou liest like a sinless child,
    Whom God hath homeward to his bosom smiled.

The dew-shower fell on thee, the sunbeam play'd,
    As Life is ever made of smiles and tears;
And ofttimes has the breeze of summer sway'd,
    And with its mellow music mock'd thy fears;
But now, O wo...

Love and harmony combine,
And round our souls entwine
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.

Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.

Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.

There she sits and feeds her young,
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love, I hear his tongue.

There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.

I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
Within the silent ground,
'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain turf should break.

A cell within the frozen mould,
A coffin borne through sleet,
And icy clods above it rolled,
While fierce the tempests beat,
Away! I will not think of these,
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze,
Earth green beneath the feet,
And be the damp mould gently pressed
Into my narrow place of rest.

There through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their bea...

(FROM TYLNEY HALL.)

Still glides the gentle streamlet on,
With shifting current new and strange;
The water that was here is gone,
But those green shadows do not change.

Serene, or ruffled by the storm,
On present waves as on the past,
The mirrored grave retains its form,
The self-same trees their semblance cast.

The hue each fleeting globule wears,
That drop bequeaths it to the next,
One picture still the surface bears,
To illustrate the murmured text.

So, love, however time may flow,
Fresh hours pursuing those that flee
One constant image still shall show
My tide of life is true to thee!