TO THE DAISY.

1802. - 1807.

BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere,
Bold in maternal Nature's care,

And all the long year through the heir

Of joy or sorrow,

Methinks that there abides in thee

Some concord with humanity,

Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

Is it that Man is soon deprest,

A thoughtless thing! who, once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,

Or on his reason,

And Thou would'st teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind,

A hope for times that are unkind
And every season?

Thou wander'st the wide world about,
Uncheck'd by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,

Yet pleased and willing;

Meek, yielding to the occasion's call,
And all things suffering from all,
Thy function apostolical

In peace fulfilling.

ΙΟ

20

THE GREEN LINNET.

1803.- 1807.

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat,

And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together!

One have I marked, the happiest guest

In all this covert of the blest;

Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!

Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,

Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.

While birds and butterflies and flowers
Make all one band of paramours,

Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;

A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.

ΙΟ

20

Amid yon tuft of hazel-trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,

Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

YEW-TREES.

1803.-1815.

THERE is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore :
Not loath to furnish weapons for the hands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched

To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.

40

309

Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree ! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;

Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane, a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially, beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes

May meet at noontide, - Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton

And Time the Shadow, - there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

ΙΟ

20

30

AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS.

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

1803.-1845.

I SHIVER, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold;
As vapors breathed from dungeons cold
Strike pleasure dead,

So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near
And thou forbidden to appear?

As if it were thyself that's here

I shrink with pain;

And both my wishes and my

Alike are vain.

Off weight

ΙΟ

fear

nor press on weight! away

Dark thoughts! - they came, but not to stay;
With chastened feelings would I pay

The tribute due

To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,

20