If to a rock from rains he fly, Or, some bright day of April sky, And wearily at length should fare; A hundred times, by rock or bower, Some steady love; some brief delight; If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to Thee should turn, I drink out of an humbler urn A lowlier pleasure; The homely sympathy that heeds Of hearts at leisure. Fresh-smitten by the morning ray, And when, at dusk, by dews opprest And all day long I number yet, An instinct call it, a blind sense; Coming one knows not how, nor whence, Child of the Year! that round dost run As lark or leveret, Thy long-lost praise* thou shalt regain; Than in old time;-thou not in vain Art Nature's favourite. 1802. *See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower. VIII. TO THE SAME FLOWER. WITH little here to do or see Thou unassuming Common-place Oft on the dappled turf at ease Loose types of things through all degrees, And many a fond and idle name I give to thee, for praise or blame, While I am gazing. A nun demure of lowly port; Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, A Of all temptations; queen in crown of rubies drest; A starveling in a scanty vest; Are all, as seems to suit thee best, A little cyclops, with one eye That thought comes next-and instantly The shape will vanish-and behold I see thee glittering from afar- In heaven above thee! Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest ;— May peace come never to his nest, Who shall reprove thee! Bright Flower! for by that name at last, I call thee, and to that cleave fast, That breath'st with me in sun and air, Of thy meek nature! IX. THE GREEN LINNET. BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed In this sequestered nook how sweet And birds and flowers once more to greet, My last year's friends together. 1805. |