The Voice of the Grass. HERE I come creeping, creeping everywhere; I come creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere; Here, where the children play I come creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; Silently creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; And the glad morning light, I come quietly creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; In summer's pleasant hours; The gentle cow is glad, And the merry bird not sad, To see me creeping, creeping everywhere. Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere; Most gratefully I raise To Him, at whose command Creeping, silently creeping everywhere. SARAH ROBERTS. The Skylark. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! 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. 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, Whose intense lamp narrows 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, 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 Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 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, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 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, Match'd 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 Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? And pine for what is not: With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joys we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, 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, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. SHELLEY. To a Skylark. ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Lo! here the gentle Lark! Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, Who doth the world so gloriously behold, That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold. SHAKESPEARE. To the Nightingale. SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours Well pleased with delights which present are, What soul can be so sick which by thy songs (Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs, And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven? Sweet, artless songster! thou my mind dost raise To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays. DRUMMOND. A Nightingale Singing. HER supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of short, thick sobs, That roll themselves over her lubric throat CRASHAWE. |