Page images
PDF
EPUB

Her plumy mantle's living hues,
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendor that inhues
The robes of pictured glass.

And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice
Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.

But, exiled from Australian bowers,
And singleness her lot,

She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note.

No more of pity for regrets
With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,
Or spite, if cause be given ;

Arch, volatile, a sportive bird
By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard,
And pleased to be admired!

[ocr errors]

THIS MOSS-LINED shed, green, soft, and dry,
Harbors a self-contented Wren,

Not shunning man's abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken,

Strange places, coverts unendeared,
She never tried, the very nest

In which this Child of Spring was reared,
Is warmed, thro' winter, by her feathery
breast

To the bleak winds she sometimes gives
A slender unexpected strain:
Proof that the hermitess still lives,
Though she appear not, and be sought in
vain.

Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon.
If called to choose between the favored pall,
Which would you be,-the bird of the saloon,
By lady-fingers tended with nice care,
Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed,
Or Nature's DARKLING of this mossy shed?
1825%

XXII.

THE DANISH BOY.

A FRAGMENT.

L

BETWEEN two sister moorland rills

There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.

And in this smooth and open dell There is a tempest-stricken tree; A corner-stone by nightning cut, The last stone of a lonely hut; And in this déll you see

A thing no storm can e'er destroy, The shadow of a Danish Boy.

II.

In clouds above, the lark is heard,
But drops not here to earth for rest;
Within this lonesome nook the bird"
Did never build her nest.

No beast, no bird hath here his home;
Bees, wafted on the breezy air,
Pass high above those fragrant bells
To other flowers:-to other dells
Their burthens do they bear;
The Danish Boy walks here alone
The lovely dell is all his own.

III.

A Spirit of noon-day is he;

Yet seems a form of flesh and blood;
Nor piping shepherd shall he be,
Nor herd-boy of the wood.

A regál vest of fur he wears,
In color like a raven's wing;

It fears not rain, nor wind; nor dew;
But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue
As budding pines in spring;
His helmet has a vernal grace,
Fresh as the bloom upon his face.

IV.

harp is from his shoulder slung;
Resting the harp upon his knee,
To words of a forgotten tongue,
He suits its melody

Of flocks upon the neighboring hill
He is the darling and the joy;
And often, when no cause appears,
The mountain-ponies prick their ears,
-They hear the Danish Boy,
While in the dell he sings alone
Beside the tree and corner-stone.

V.

There sits he; in his face you spy
No trace of a ferocious air,
Nor ever was a cloudless sky

So steady or so fair.

The lovely Danish Boy is blest
And happy in his flowery cove:

From bloody deeds his thoughts are far

[ocr errors]

And yet he warbles songs of war,
That seem like songs of love,
For calm and gentle is his mien;
Like a dead Boy he is serene.
1799.

XXIII.

SONG

FOR THE WANDERING JEW.

THOUGH the torrents from their fountains
Roar down many a craggy steep,
Yet they find among the mountains
Resting-places calm and deep.

Clouds that love through air to hasten,
Ere the storm its fury stills,
Helmet-like themselves will fasten
On the reads of towering hills.
What, if through the frozen centre
Of the Alps the Chamois bound,
Yet he has a home to enter
In some nook of chosen ground:
And the Sea-horse, though the ocean
Yield him no domestic cave,
Slumbers without sense of motion,
Couched upon the rocking wave.
If on windy days the Raven
Gambol like a dancing skiff,
Not the less she loves her haven
In the bosom of the cliff.

The fleet Ostrich, till day closes,
Vagrant over desert sands,
Brooding on her eggs reposes
When chill night that care demands.

Day and night my toils redouble,
Never nearer to the goal;
Night and day, I feel the trouble
Of the Wanderer in my soul.
1800.

XXIV.

STRAY PLEASURES.

-Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find."

By their floating mill,

That lies dead and still,

Behold yon Prisoners three,

The platform is small, but gives room for them ali;

And they're dancing merrily.

From the shore comes the notes
To their mill where it floats,

To their house and their mill tethered fast: To the small wooden isle where, their work to beguile,

They from morning to even take whatever is given;

And many a blithe day they have past.
In sight of the spires,

All alive with the fires

Of the sun going down to his rest,
In the broad open eye of the solitary sky,
They dance,--there are three, as jocund as
free,

While they dance on the calm river's breast.
Man and Maidens wheel,

They themselves make the reel, And their music's a prey which they seize;' It plays not for them,-what matter? 'tis theirs ;

And if they had care, it has scattered their cares,

While they dance, crying, "Long as ye please!"

They dance not for me,

Yet mine is their glee!

Thus pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find;

Thus a rich loving-kindness, redundantly kind,

Moves all nature to gladness and mirth.
The showers of the spring
Rouse the birds, and they sing;
If the wind do but stir for his proper delight,
Each leaf, that and this, his neighbor will
kiss;

Each wave, one and t'other, speeds after his brother;

They are happy, for that is their right! 1806.

XXV.

THE PILGRIM'S DREAM;

OR, THE STAR AND THE GLOW-WORM.

A PILGRIM, when the summer day
Had closed upon his weary way,

The Miller with two Dames, on the breast A lodging begged beneath a castle's roof;

of the Thames!

But him the haughty Warder spurned;

[blocks in formation]

now,

when day was fled, and night

And reeled with visionary stir
In the blue depth, like Lucifer
Cast headlong to the pit!

Fire raged and, when the spangled floor
Of ancient ether was no more,

New heavens succeeded by the dream brought forth.

And all the happy Souls that rode
Transfigured through that fresh abode
Had heretofore, in humble trust,
Shone meekly mid their native dust,
The Glow-worms of the earth!

This knowledge, from an angel's voice
Proceeding, made the heart rejoice
Of Him who slept upon the open lea:
Waking at morn he murmured not;
And, till life's journey closed, the spot
Was to the Pilgrim's soul endeared,
Where by that dream he had been cheered
Beneath the shady tree.
1818.

XXVI

Hushed the dark earth, fast closing weary THE POET AND THE CAGED TUR

eyes,

A very reptile could presume

To show her taper in the gloom, As if in rivalship with One

Who sate a ruler on his throne Erected in the skies.

"Exalted Star!" the Worm replied,
"Abate this unbecoming pride,
Or with a less uneasy lustre shine;
Thou shrink'st as momently thy rays
Are mastered by the breathing haze;
While neither mist, nor thickest cloud
That shapes in heaven its murky shroud,
Hath power to injure mine.

But not or this do I aspire
To match the spark of local fire,

That at my will burns on the dewy lawn,
With thy acknowledged glories ;-No!
Yet, thus upbraided, I may show
What favors do attend me here,
Till, like thyself, I disappear
Before the purple dawn."

When this in modest guise was said,
Across the welkin seemed to spread

A boding sound-for aught but sleep unfit!
Hills quaked, the rivers backward ran;
That Star, so proud of late, looked wan;

TLEDOVE.

As often as I murmur here

My half-formed melodies,

Straight from her osier mansion near,
The Turtledove replies:
Though silent as a leaf before,

The captive promptly coos;
Is it to teach her own soft lore,
Or second my weak Muse?

I rather think, the gentle Dove
Is murmuring a reproof,
Displeased that I from lays of love
Have dared to keep aloof;
That I, a Bard of hill and dale,
Have caroll'd, fancy free,
As if nor dove nor nightingale,

Had heart or voice for me.

If such thy meaning, O forbear,
Sweet bird! to do me wrong;
Love, blessed Love, is everywhere
The spirit of my song:

'Mid grove, and by the calm fireside, Love aniinates my lyre

That coo again!-'tis not to chide,
I feel, but to inspire.
1830.

XXVII.

A WREN'S NEST.

AMONG the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,

Is none that with the little Wren's
In snugness may compare.
No door the tenement requires,
And seldom needs a labored roof;
Yet is it to the fiercest sun
Impervious, and storm-proof.

So warm, so beautiful withal,
In perfect fitness for its aim,
That to the Kind by special grace
Their instinct surely came.

And when for their abodes they seek

An opportune recess,
The hermit has no finer eye
For shadowy quietness.

These find, 'mid ivied abbey-walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are pent-housed by a brae
That overhangs a brook.

There to the brooding bird her mate
Warbles by fits his low clear song;
And by the busy streamlet both
Are sung to all day long.

Or in sequestered lanes they build,
Where, till the flitting bird's return,
Her eggs within the nest repose,
Like relics in an urn.

But still, where general choice is good,
There is a better and a best;
And, among fairest objects, some
Are fairer than the rest;

This, one of those small builders proved
In a green covert, where, from out
The forehead of a pollard oak,
The leafy antlers sprout;

For She who planned the mossy lodge,
Mistrusting her evasive skill,

Had to a Primrose looked for aid
Her wishes to fulfil,

High on the trunk's projecting brow,
And fixed an infant's span above

The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest,
The prettiest of the grove !.

[blocks in formation]

The Primrose for a veil had spread
The largest of her upright leaves;
And thus, for purposes benign,
A simple flower deceives.

Concealed from friends who might disturb
Thy quiet with no ill intent,
Secure from evil eyes and hands
On barbarous plunder bent,

Rest, Mother-bird! and when thy young
Take flight, and thou art free to roam,
When withered is the guardian Flower,
And empty thy late home,

Think how ye prospered, thou and thine,
Amid the unviolated grove
Housed near the growing Primrose-tuft
In foresight, or in love.
1833.

[blocks in formation]

So drooped Adonis bathed in sanguine dew Of his death-wound, when he from innocent air

The gentlest breath of resignation drew;
While Venus in a passion of despair
Rent, weeping over him, her golden hair
Spangled with drops of that celestial
shower.

She suffered, as Immortals sometimes do; But pangs more lasting far that Lover knew

Who first, weighed down by scorn, in some lone bower

Did press this semblance of unpitied smart
Into the service of his constant heart,
His own dejection, down.cast Flower! could
share

With thine, and gave the mournful name which thou wilt ever bear.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »