Better than all measures That in books are found, 99 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know 104 The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 242 P. B. SHELLEY. THE GREEN LINNET Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed And birds and flowers once more to greet, One have I marked, the happiest guest 10 Hail to Thee, far above the rest Thou, Linnet! in thy green array, Dost lead the revels of the May, 15 And this is thy dominion. While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, Make all one band of paramours, Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, 20 A Life, a Presence like the Air, Scattering thy gladness without care, Thyself thy own enjoyment. Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, There! where the flutter of his wings My dazzled sight he oft deceives— He mocked and treated with disdain W. WORDSWORTH. 5 243 TO THE CUCKOO O blithe new-comer! I have heard, O Cuckoo shall I call thee Bird, While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear; From hill to hill it seems to pass, Though babbling only to the vale Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery ; The same whom in my school-boy days Which made me look a thousand ways To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green ; And I can listen to thee yet} And listen, till I do beget That golden time again. O blessed Bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial, fairy place, That is fit home for Thee ! W. WORDSWORTH. 20 25 30 244 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains But being too happy in thine happiness,- 5 Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10 O for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvéd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 15 With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 18 That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret 23 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs ; 28 Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 35 Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalméd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ; Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 40 44 49 The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a muséd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; 55 Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— 60 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 65 Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 70 75 Fled is that music :-do I wake or sleep? 80 245 UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802 Earth has not anything to show more fair: |