And the sweet, tranquil Thames, To thy rack'd heart and brain Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Eternal passion! Eternal pain! TO THE CUCKOO. William Wordsworth. O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice. O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice? 1 In the old story, the son of the king of the Thracians in Daulis ill-treated his wife Procne and her sister Philomela. They fled and begged the gods to change them to birds. Procne, accordingly, became a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear, From hill to hill it seems to pass, At once far off, and near. Though babbling only to the Vale, Of sunshine and of flowers, 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 listened to; that Cry Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; Still longed for, never seen. And I can listen to thee yet; Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again. O blessed Bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home for Thee! TO A SKYLARK. Percy Bysshe Shelley. HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit! That from Heaven, or near it, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow-clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not; Like a high-born maiden, In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower; Like a glowworm golden, In a dell of dew, Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view; Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be; Shadow of annoyance Never came 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; Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? |