Whether a desert or an Eden be
Thy home, so thou remain'st alive and free
To skim the air.
God speed thee, pretty bird! may thy small nest
With little ones, all in good time be blest!
I love thee much;
For well thou managest that life of thine,
While I oh, ask not what I do with mine!
Would I were such!
O WILLOW, why forever weep,
As one who mourns an endless wrong?
What hidden woe can lie so deep?
What utter grief can last so long?
The Spring makes haste with step elate
Your life and beauty to renew ;
She even bids the roses wait,
And gives her first sweet care to you.
The welcome redbreast folds his wing,
Το pour for you his freshest strain;
To
you the earliest bluebirds sing,
Till all your light stems thrill again.
The sunshine drapes your limbs with light,
The rain braids diamonds in your hair,
The breeze makes love to you at night But still you droop and still despair.
Beneath your boughs, at fall of dew,
By lover's lips is softly told
The tale that, all the ages through,
Has kept the world from growing old.
But still, though April's buds unfold,
Or Summer sets the earth aleaf,
Or Autumn pranks your robes with gold,
You sway and sigh in graceful grief.
Mourn on forever, unconsoled,
And keep thy secret, faithful tree;
No heart in all the world can hold
A sweeter grace than constancy!
SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops, how they kiss
Every little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a string of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from underground;
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapors fly apace,
And hover o'er the smiling face
Of these pastures; where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore from such danger lock
Every one his lovéd flock.
And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away;
Or the crafty, thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourself from these,
Be not too secure in ease;
So shall you good shepherds prove
And deserve your master's love.
Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers
And soft silence fall in numbers
On your eyelids. So farewell!
Thus I end my evening knell.
THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews; in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin, - his control
Stops with the shore ;- upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own;
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarch's tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,-
These are thy toys; and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: - not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now!
|