ODE TO THE CUCKOO. AIL, beauteous stranger of the Thou messenger of spring! What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant: with thee I hail the time of flowers, The schoolboy wandering through the woods, To pull the primrose gay, Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, Oh could I fly, I'd fly with thee! Spink, spank, spink, Look, what a nice new coat is mine; Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, Passing at home a patient life, Broods in the grass while her husband sings: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link. Brood, kind creature; you need not fear Modest and shy as a nun is she; And yet so wicked too? Than many a Kate has done. My fuss with little Jane, And Ann, with whom I used to walk And all that tore their locks of black, Ah no! the living oak shall crash, The rock shall rend its mossy base, And thunder down the hill, Shall add one word, to tell Peace to the ever murmuring race! Shall fold in death her feeble wings Then shall she raise her fainting voice, And then the child of future years OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. "But all night long Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain." INGED mimic of the woods! thou mot- Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe; Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school; To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, HIS is the ship of pearl, which poets Cast from her lap forlorn! THIS feign, Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Where the cold Sea-maids rise to sun their Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed. As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. " """What plant we with this apple tree? Roslyn, L. J. July 120 1875+ |