370 THE DRYADS. They screen the cuckoo when he sings; and teach The mother blackbird how to lead astray The unformed spirit of the foolish boy From thick to thick, from hedge to bay or beach, Help the bruised hedgehog. And at rest, they love And handy squirrel, nibbling hastily ; And fragrant hiving bee, So happy that he will not move, not he, Without a song; and hidden, loving dove, With his deep breath; and bird of wakeful glen, Stealing, when daylight's common tasks are done, MAN. Herbert. My God, I heard this day, That none doth build a stately habitation, What house more stately hath there been, For Man is every thing, And more. He is a tree, yet bears no fruit; Man is all symmetry, Full of proportions, one limb to another, Each part may call the farthest brother : Nothing hath got so far, But Man hath caught and kept it, as his prey. He is, in little, all the sphere. Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they For us the winds do blow, The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see but means our good, The stars have us to bed Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws. All things unto our flesh are kind, Each thing is full of duty : Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation; Below, our drink; above, our meat; Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty? Then how all things are neat! More servants wait on Man Than he 'll take notice of. In every path He treads down that which doth befriend him When sickness makes him pale and wan. O, mighty love! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him. So brave a palace built, O, dwell in it, That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee; TO A SKYLARK.- Shelley, HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart 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. In the golden lightning 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. 374 TO A SKYLARK, All the earth and air From one lonely cloud 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 highborn maiden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower; Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view; Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves. |