Chapter XI: Part III: Poems of Nature (7)

Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper: Only the moon is a dancing blade That leads a host of the Crescent warriors To a phantom raid.

Out of the Lands of Faerie a summons, A long, strange cry that thrills through the glade:-- The gray-green glooms of the elm are stirring, Newly afraid.

Last heard, white music, under the olives Where once Theocritus sang and played-- Thy Thracian song is the old new wonder, O moon-white maid!

William Sharp [1855-1905]

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

Dear chorister, who from those shadows sends, Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light, Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends, Become all ear, stars stay to hear thy plight: If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, Who ne'er, not in a dream, did taste delight, May thee importune who like care pretends, And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite; Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try, And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, Since, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? The bird, as if my questions did her move, With trembling wings sobbed forth, I love! I love!"

William Drummond [1585-1649]

THE NIGHTINGALE

To-night retired, the queen of heaven With young Endymion stays; And now to Hesper it is given Awhile to rule the vacant sky, Till she shall to her lamp supply A stream of brighter rays....

Propitious send thy golden ray, Thou purest light above: Let no false flame seduce to stray Where gulf or steep lie hid for harm; But lead where music's healing charm May soothe afflicted love.

To them, by many a grateful song In happier seasons vowed, These lawns, Olympia's haunt, belong: Oft by yon silver stream we walked, Or fixed, while Philomela talked, Beneath yon copses stood.

Nor seldom, where the beechen boughs That roofless tower invade, We came, while her enchanting Muse The radiant moon above us held: Till, by a clamorous owl compelled, She fled the solemn shade.

But hark! I hear her liquid tone! Now, Hesper, guide my feet Down the red marl with moss o'ergrown, Through yon wild thicket next the plain, Whose hawthorns choke the winding lane Which leads to her retreat.

See the green space: on either hand Enlarged it spreads around: See, in the midst she takes her stand, Where one old oak his awful shade Extends o'er half the level mead, Enclosed in woods profound.

Hark! how through many a melting note She now prolongs her lays: How sweetly down the void they float! The breeze their magic path attends; The stars shine out; the forest bends; The wakeful heifers gaze.

Whoe'er thou art whom chance may bring To this sequestered spot, If then the plaintive Siren sing, O softly tread beneath her bower And think of Heaven's disposing power, Of man's uncertain lot.

O think, o'er all this mortal stage What mournful scenes arise: What ruin waits on kingly rage; How often virtue dwells with woe; How many griefs from knowledge flow; How swiftly pleasure flies!

O sacred bird! let me at eve, Thus wandering all alone, Thy tender counsel oft receive, Bear witness to thy pensive airs, And pity Nature's common cares, Till I forget my own.

Mark Akenside [1721-1770]

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

O nightingale that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why. Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

John Milton [1608-1674]

PHILOMELA

The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late-bare Earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making; And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth, For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing.

O Philomela fair, O take some gladness That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness! Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth; Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken; Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish, Full womanlike, complains her will was broken, But I, who, daily craving, Cannot have to content me, Have more cause to lament me, Since wanting is more woe than too much having.

O Philomela fair, O take some gladness That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness! Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth; Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

Philip Sidney [1554-1586]

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Proven├žal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; 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, Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; 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, Clustered around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, 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 embalmed 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 covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 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, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed 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? Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

John Keats [1795-1821]

SONG

'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, That bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark, To the soothing song of sorrow. Oh nightingale! What doth she ail? And is she sad or jolly? For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth So like to melancholy.

The merry lark, he soars on high, No worldly thought o'ertakes him; He sings aloud to the clear blue sky, And the daylight that awakes him. As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay, The nightingale is trilling; With feeling bliss, no less than his, Her little heart is thrilling.

Yet ever and anon, a sigh Peers through her lavish mirth; For the lark's bold song is of the sky, And hers is of the earth. By night and day, she tunes her lay, To drive away all sorrow; For bliss, alas! to-night must pass, And woe may come to-morrow.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1840]

BIRD SONG

The robin sings of willow-buds, Of snowflakes on the green; The bluebird sings of Mayflowers, The crackling leaves between; The veery has a thousand tales To tell to girl and boy; But the oriole, the oriole, Sings, "Joy! joy! joy!"

The pewee calls his little mate, Sweet Phoebe, gone astray, The warbler sings, "What fun, what fun, To tilt upon the spray!" The cuckoo has no song, but clucks, Like any wooden toy; But the oriole, the oriole, Sings, "Joy! joy! joy!"

The grosbeak sings the rose's birth, And paints her on his breast; The sparrow sings of speckled eggs, Soft brooded in the nest. The wood-thrush sings of peace, "Sweet peace, Sweet peace," without alloy; But the oriole, the oriole, Sings "Joy! joy! joy!"

Laura E. Richards [1850-

THE SONG THE ORIOLE SINGS

There is a bird that comes and sings In a professor's garden-trees; Upon the English oak he swings, And tilts and tosses in the breeze.

I know his name, I know his note, That so with rapture takes my soul; Like flame the gold beneath his throat, His glossy cope is black as coal.

O oriole, it is the song You sang me from the cottonwood, Too young to feel that I was young, Too glad to guess if life were good.

And while I hark, before my door, Adown the dusty Concord Road, The blue Miami flows once more As by the cottonwood it flowed.

And on the bank that rises steep, And pours a thousand tiny rills, From death and absence laugh and leap My school-mates to their flutter-mills.

The blackbirds jangle in the tops Of hoary-antlered sycamores; The timorous killdee starts and stops Among the drift-wood on the shores.

Below, the bridge--a noonday fear Of dust and shadow shot with sun-- Stretches its gloom from pier to pier, Far unto alien coasts unknown.

And on these alien coasts, above, Where silver ripples break the stream's Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove A hidden parrot scolds and screams.

Ah, nothing, nothing! Commonest things: A touch, a glimpse, a sound, a breath-- It is a song the oriole sings-- And all the rest belongs to death.

But oriole, my oriole, Were some bright seraph sent from bliss With songs of heaven to win my soul From simple memories such as this,

What could he tell to tempt my ear From you? What high thing could there be, So tenderly and sweetly dear As my lost boyhood is to me?

William Dean Howells [1837-1920]

TO AN ORIOLE

How falls it, oriole, thou hast come to fly In tropic splendor through our Northern sky?

At some glad moment was it nature's choice To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice?

Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black, In some forgotten garden, ages back,

Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, Desire unspeakably to be a bird?

Edgar Fawcett [1847-1904]

SONG: THE OWL

When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

SWEET SUFFOLK OWL

Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight With feathers, like a lady bright; Thou sing'st alone, sitting by night, "Te whit! Te whoo!"

Thy note that forth so freely rolls With shrill command the mouse controls; And sings a dirge for dying souls. "Te whit! Te whoo!"

Thomas Vautor [fl. 1616]

THE PEWEE

The listening Dryads hushed the woods; The boughs were thick, and thin and few The golden ribbons fluttering through; Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods The lindens lifted to the blue: Only a little forest-brook The farthest hem of silence shook: When in the hollow shades I heard,-- Was it a spirit, or a bird? Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, Some Peri calling to her mate, Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!"

Through rocky clefts the brooklet fell With plashy pour, that scarce was sound, But only quiet less profound, A stillness fresh and audible: A yellow leaflet to the ground Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss, And, wavering brightly over it, Sat like a butterfly alit: The owlet in his open door Stared roundly: while the breezes bore The plaint to far-off places drear,-- "Pe-ree! pe-ree! peer!"

To trace it in its green retreat I sought among the boughs in vain; And followed still the wandering strain, So melancholy and so sweet The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. 'Twas now a sorrow in the air, Some nymph's immortalized despair Haunting the woods and waterfalls; And now, at long, sad intervals, Sitting unseen in dusky shade, His plaintive pipe some fairy played, With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,-- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

Long-drawn and clear its closes were,-- As if the hand of Music through The somber robe of Silence drew A thread of golden gossamer: So pure a flute the fairy blew. Like beggared princes of the wood, In silver rags the birches stood; The hemlocks, lordly counselors, Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, In beechen jackets patched and gray, Seemed waiting spellbound all the day That low, entrancing note to hear,-- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

I quit the search, and sat me down Beside the brook, irresolute, And watched a little bird in suit Of sober olive, soft and brown, Perched in the maple-branches, mute: With greenish gold its vest was fringed, Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, With ivory pale its wings were barred, And its dark eyes were tender-starred. "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" And thrice the mournful answer came, So faint and far, and yet so near,-- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

For so I found my forest bird,-- The pewee of the loneliest woods, Sole singer in these solitudes, Which never robin's whistle stirred, Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. Quick darting through the dewy morn, The redstart trilled his twittering horn, And vanished in thick boughs: at even, Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, The high notes of the lone wood-thrush Fall on the forest's holy hush: But thou all day complainest here,-- "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"

Hast thou, too, in thy little breast, Strange longings for a happier lot,-- For love, for life, thou know'st not what,-- A yearning, and a vague unrest, For something still which thou hast not?-- Thou soul of some benighted child That perished, crying in the wild! Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid, By love allured, by love betrayed, Whose spirit with her latest sigh Arose, a little winged cry, Above her chill and mossy bier! "Dear me! dear me! dear!"

Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars The pewee's life of cheerful ease! He sings, or leaves his song to seize An insect sporting in the bars Of mild bright light that gild the trees. A very poet he! For him All pleasant places still and dim: His heart, a spark of heavenly fire, Burns with undying, sweet desire: And so he sings; and so his song, Though heard not by the hurrying throng, Is solace to the pensive ear: Pewee! pewee! peer!

John Townsend Trowbridge [1827-1916]

ROBIN REDBREAST

Sweet Robin, I have heard them say That thou wert there upon the day The Christ was crowned in cruel scorn And bore away one bleeding thorn,-- That so the blush upon thy breast, In shameful sorrow, was impressed; And thence thy genial sympathy With our redeemed humanity.

Sweet Robin, would that I might be Bathed in my Saviour's blood, like thee; Bear in my breast, whate'er the loss, The bleeding blazon of the cross; Live ever, with thy loving mind, In fellowship with human-kind; And take my pattern still from thee, In gentleness and constancy.

George Washington Doane [1799-1859]

ROBIN REDBREAST

Good-by, good-by to Summer! For Summer's nearly done;-- The garden smiling faintly, Cool breezes in the sun; Our thrushes now are silent, Our swallows flown away,-- But Robin's here in coat of brown, And scarlet breast-knot gay. Robin, Robin Redbreast, O Robin dear! Robin sings so sweetly In the falling of the year.

Bright yellow, red, and orange, The leaves come down in hosts; The trees are Indian princes, But soon they'll turn to ghosts; The scanty pears and apples Hang russet on the bough; It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late, 'Twill soon be Winter now. Robin, Robin Redbreast, O Robin dear! And what will this poor Robin do? For pinching days are near.

The fireside for the cricket, The wheat-stack for the mouse, When trembling night-winds whistle And moan all round the house. The frosty ways like iron, The branches plumed with snow,-- Alas! in Winter dead and dark, Where can poor Robin go? Robin, Robin Redbreast, O Robin dear! And a crumb of bread for Robin, His little heart to cheer!

William Allingham [1824-1889]

THE SANDPIPER

Across the narrow beach we flit, One little sandpiper and I, And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit,-- One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,-- One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry. He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong; He scans me with a fearless eye: Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky: For are we not God's children both, Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

Celia Thaxter [1835-1894]

THE SEA-MEW

How joyously the young sea-mew Lay dreaming on the waters blue, Whereon our little bark had thrown A little shade, the only one,-- But shadows ever man pursue.

Familiar with the waves and free As if their own white foam were he, His heart upon the heart of ocean Lay learning all its mystic motion, And throbbing to the throbbing sea.

And such a brightness in his eye, As if the ocean and the sky Within him had lit up and nursed A soul God gave him not at first To comprehend their majesty.

We were not cruel, yet did sunder His white wing from the blue waves under, And bound it, while his fearless eyes Shone up to ours in calm surprise, As deeming us some ocean wonder!

We bore our ocean bird unto A grassy place, where he might view The flowers that curtsey to the bees, The waving of the tall green trees, The falling of the silver dew.

But flowers of earth were pale to him Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim; And when earth's dew around him lay He thought of ocean's winged spray, And his eye waxed sad and dim.

The green trees round him only made A prison with their darksome shade; And dropped his wing, and mourned he For his own boundless glittering sea-- Albeit he knew not they could fade.

Then One her gladsome face did bring, Her gentle voice's murmuring, In ocean's stead his heart to move And teach him what was human love: He thought it a strange, mournful thing.

He lay down in his grief to die (First looking to the sea-like sky That hath no waves!), because, alas! Our human touch did on him pass, And, with our touch, our agony.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

TO A SKYLARK

Up with me! up with me into the clouds! For thy song, Lark, is strong; Up with me, up with me into the clouds! Singing, singing, With clouds and sky about thee ringing, Lift me, guide me till I find That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary And to-day my heart is weary; Had I now the wings of a Fairy, Up to thee would I fly. There is madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine; Lift me, guide me high and high To thy banqueting-Place in the sky.

Joyous as morning Thou art laughing and scorning; Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest. And, though little troubled with sloth, Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth To be such a traveler as I. Happy, happy Liver, With a soul as strong as a mountain river Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on, And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

TO A SKYLARK

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler!--that love-prompted strain --'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond-- Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine, Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine: Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam-- True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

THE SKYLARK

Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place-- O to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay and loud, Far in the downy cloud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. Where, on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

Then, when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather blooms Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place-- O to abide in the desert with thee!

James Hogg [1770-1835]

THE SKYLARK

How the blithe Lark runs up the golden stair That leans through cloudy gates from Heaven to Earth, And all alone in the empyreal air Fills it with jubilant sweet songs of mirth; How far he seems, how far With the light upon his wings, Is it a bird, or star That shines, and sings?

What matter if the days be dark and frore, That sunbeam tells of other days to be, And singing in the light that floods him o'er In joy he overtakes Futurity; Under cloud-arches vast He peeps, and sees behind Great Summer coming fast Adown the wind!

And now he dives into a rainbow's rivers, In streams of gold and purple he is drowned, Shrilly the arrows of his song he shivers, As though the stormy drops were turned to sound; And now he issues through, He scales a cloudy tower, Faintly, like falling dew, His fast notes shower.

Let every wind be hushed, that I may hear The wondrous things he tells the World below, Things that we dream of he is watching near, Hopes that we never dreamed he would bestow; Alas! the storm hath rolled Back the gold gates again, Or surely he had told All Heaven to men!

So the victorious Poet sings alone, And fills with light his solitary home, And through that glory sees new worlds foreshown, And hears high songs, and triumphs yet to come; He waves the air of Time With thrills of golden chords, And makes the world to climb On linked words.

What if his hair be gray, his eyes be dim, If wealth forsake him, and if friends be cold, Wonder unbars her thousand gates to him, Truth never fails, nor Beauty waxes old; More than he tells his eyes Behold, his spirit hears, Of grief, and joy, and sighs 'Twixt joy and tears.

Blest is the man who with the sound of song Can charm away the heartache, and forget The frost of Penury, and the stings of Wrong, And drown the fatal whisper of Regret! Darker are the abodes Of Kings, though his be poor, While Fancies, like the Gods, Pass through his door.

Singing thou scalest Heaven upon thy wings, Thou liftest a glad heart into the skies; He maketh his own sunrise, while he sings, And turns the dusty Earth to Paradise; I see thee sail along Far up the sunny streams, Unseen, I hear his song, I see his dreams.

Frederick Tennyson [1807-1898]

TO A SKYLARK

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 bright'ning, 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.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, 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, Singing hymns unbidden Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt-- A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

THE STORMY PETREL

A thousand miles from land are we, Tossing about on the roaring sea,-- From billow to bounding billow cast, Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast. The sails are scattered abroad like weeds; The strong masts shake like quivering reeds; The mighty cables and iron chains, The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,-- They strain and they crack; and hearts like stone Their natural, hard, proud strength disown.

Up and down!--up and down! From the base of the wave to the billow's crown, And amidst the flashing and feathery foam The stormy petrel finds a home,-- A home, if such a place may be For her who lives on the wide, wide sea, On the craggy ice, in the frozen air, And only seeketh her rocky lair To warm her young, and to teach them to spring At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing!

O'er the deep!--o'er the deep! Where the whale and the shark and the swordfish sleep,-- Outflying the blast and the driving rain, The petrel telleth her tale--in vain; For the mariner curseth the warning bird Which bringeth him news of the storm unheard! Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still; Yet he ne'er falter,--so, petrel, spring Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!

Bryan Waller Procter [1787-1874]

THE FIRST SWALLOW

The gorse is yellow on the heath, The banks with speedwell flowers are gay, The oaks are budding, and, beneath, The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath, The silver wreath, of May.

The welcome guest of settled Spring, The swallow, too, has come at last; Just at sunset, when thrushes sing, I saw her dash with rapid wing, And hailed her as she passed.

Come, summer visitant, attach To my reed roof your nest of clay, And let my ear your music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch At the gray dawn of day.

Charlotte Smith [1749-1806]

TO A SWALLOW BUILDING UNDER OUR EAVES

Thou too hast traveled, little fluttering thing,-- Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing Thou too must rest. But much, my little bird, could'st thou but tell, I'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well To build thy nest.

For thou hast passed fair places in thy flight; A world lay all beneath thee where to light; And, strange thy taste, Of all the varied scenes that met thine eye, Of all the spots for building 'neath the sky, To choose this waste!

Did fortune try thee?--was thy little purse Perchance run low, and thou, afraid of worse, Felt here secure? Ah, no! thou need'st not gold, thou happy one! Thou know'st it not. Of all God's creatures, man Alone is poor.

What was it, then?--some mystic turn of thought, Caught under German eaves, and hither brought, Marring thine eye For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown A sober thing that dost but mope and moan, Not knowing why?

Nay, if thy mind be sound, I need not ask, Since here I see thee working at thy task With wing and beak. A well-laid scheme doth that small head contain, At which thou work'st, brave bird, with might and main, Nor more need'st seek.

In truth, I rather take it thou hast got By instinct wise much sense about thy lot, And hast small care Whether an Eden or a desert 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!

Jane Welsh Carlyle [1801-1866]

CHIMNEY SWALLOWS

I slept in an old homestead by the sea: And in their chimney nest, At night the swallows told home-lore to me, As to a friendly guest.

A liquid twitter, low, confiding, glad, From many glossy throats, Was all the voice; and yet its accents had A poem's golden notes.

Quaint legends of the fireside and the shore, And sounds of festal cheer, And tones of those whose tasks of love are o'er, Were breathed into mine ear;

And wondrous lyrics, felt but never sung, The heart's melodious bloom; And histories, whose perfumes long have clung About each hallowed room.

I heard the dream of lovers, as they found At last their hour of bliss, And fear and pain and long suspense were drowned In one heart-healing kiss.

I heard the lullaby of babes, that grew To sons and daughters fair; And childhood's angels, singing as they flew, And sobs of secret prayer.

I heard the voyagers who seemed to sail Into the sapphire sky, And sad, weird voices in the autumn gale, As the swift ships went by;

And sighs suppressed and converse soft and low About the sufferer's bed, And what is uttered when the stricken know That the dear one is dead;

And steps of those who, in the Sabbath light, Muse with transfigured face; And hot lips pressing, through the long, dark night, The pillow's empty place;

And fervent greetings of old friends, whose path In youth had gone apart, But to each other brought life's aftermath, With uncorroded heart.

The music of the seasons touched the strain, Bird-joy and laugh of flowers, The orchard's bounty and the yellow grain, Snow storm and sunny showers;

And secrets of the soul that doubts and yearns And gropes in regions dim, Till, meeting Christ with raptured eye, discerns Its perfect life in Him.

So, thinking of the Master and his tears, And how the birds are kept, I sank in arms that folded me from fears, And like an infant, slept.

Horatio Nelson Powers [1826-1890]

ITYLUS

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring? A thousand summers are over and dead. What hast thou found in the spring to follow? What hast thou found in thine heart to sing? What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?

O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow, Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south, The soft south whither thine heart is set? Shall not the grief of the old time follow? Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth? Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?

Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow, Thy way is long to the sun and the south; But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire, Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow, From tawny body and sweet small mouth Feed the heart of the night with fire.

I the nightingale all spring through, O swallow, sister, O changing swallow, All spring through till the spring be done, Clothed with the light of the night on the dew, Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow, Take flight and follow and find the sun.

Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow, Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber, How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet? For where thou fliest I shall not follow, Till life forget and death remember, Till thou remember and I forget.

Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow, I know not how thou hast heart to sing. Hast thou the heart? is it all passed over? Thy lord the summer is good to follow, And fair the feet of thy lover the spring: But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?

O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow, My heart in me is a molten ember And over my head the waves have met. But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow Could I forget or thou remember, Couldst thou remember and I forget.

O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow, The heart's division divideth us. Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree; But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow To the place of the slaying of Itylus, The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.

O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow, I pray thee sing not a little space. Are not the roofs and the lintels wet? The woven web that was plain to follow, The small slain body, the flower-like face, Can I remember if thou forget?

O sister, sister, thy first-begotten! The hands that cling and the feet that follow, The voice of the child's blood crying yet, Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten? Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow, But the world shall end when I forget.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

THE THROSTLE

"Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love again," Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue. Last year you sang it as gladly. "New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new That you should carol so madly?

"Love again, song again, nest again, young again," Never a prophet so crazy! And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, See, there is hardly a daisy.

"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!" O warble unchidden, unbidden! Summer is coming, is coming, my dear, And all the winters are hidden.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

OVERFLOW

Hush! With sudden gush As from a fountain, sings in yonder bush The Hermit Thrush.

Hark! Did ever Lark With swifter scintillations fling the spark That fires the dark?

Again, Like April rain Of mist and sunshine mingled, moves the strain O'er hill and plain.

Strong As love, O Song, In flame or torrent sweep through Life along, O'er grief and wrong.

John Banister Tabb [1845-1909]

JOY-MONTH

Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings! How he pours the dear pain of his gladness! What a gush! and from out what golden springs! What a rage of how sweet madness!

And golden the buttercup blooms by the way, A song of the joyous ground; While the melody rained from yonder spray Is a blossom in fields of sound.

How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves! How whispers each blade, "I am blest!" Rosy Heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, With the costliest bliss of his breast.

Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature! By cups of field and of sky, By the brimming soul of every creature!-- Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I.

Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!-- Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree, To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs! They utter the heart in me.

David Atwood Wasson [1823-1887]

MY THRUSH

All through the sultry hours of June, From morning blithe to golden noon, And till the star of evening climbs The gray-blue East, a world too soon, There sings a Thrush amid the limes.

God's poet, hid in foliage green, Sings endless songs, himself unseen; Right seldom come his silent times. Linger, ye summer hours serene! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!

Nor from these confines wander out, Where the old gun, bucolic lout, Commits all day his murderous crimes: Though cherries ripe are sweet, no doubt, Sweeter thy song amid the limes.

May I not dream God sends thee there, Thou mellow angel of the air, Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes With music's soul, all praise and prayer? Is that thy lesson in the limes?

Closer to God art thou than I: His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly Through silent ether's summer climes. Ah, never may thy music die! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!

Mortimer Collins [1827-1876]

"BLOW SOFTLY, THRUSH"

Blow softly, thrush, upon the hush That makes the least leaf loud, Blow, wild of heart, remote, apart From all the vocal crowd, Apart, remote, a spirit note That dances meltingly afloat, Blow faintly, thrush! And build the green-hid waterfall I hated for its beauty, and all The unloved vernal rapture and flush, The old forgotten lonely time, Delicate thrush! Spring's at the prime, the world's in chime, And my love is listening nearly; O lightly blow the ancient woe, Flute of the wood, blow clearly! Blow, she is here, and the world all dear, Melting flute of the hush, Old sorrow estranged, enriched, sea-changed, Breathe it, veery thrush!

Joseph Russell Taylor [1868-1933]

THE BLACK VULTURE

Aloof within the day's enormous dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home-- Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm-- Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder and the sun.

George Sterling [1869-1926]

WILD GEESE

How oft against the sunset sky or moon I watched that moving zigzag of spread wings In unforgotten Autumns gone too soon, In unforgotten Springs! Creatures of desolation, far they fly Above all lands bound by the curling foam; In misty lens, wild moors and trackless sky These wild things have their home. They know the tundra of Siberian coasts. And tropic marshes by the Indian seas; They know the clouds and night and starry hosts From Crux to Pleiades. Dark flying rune against the western glow-- It tells the sweep and loneliness of things, Symbol of Autumns vanished long ago. Symbol of coming Springs!

Frederick Peterson [1859-

TO A WATERFOWL

Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- The desert and illimitable air,-- Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

William Cullen Bryant [1794-1878]

THE WOOD-DOVE'S NOTE

Meadows with yellow cowslips all aglow, Glory of sunshine on the uplands bare, And faint and far, with sweet elusive flow, The Wood-dove's plaintive call, "O where! where! where!"

Straight with old Omar in the almond grove From whitening boughs I breathe the odors rare And hear the princess mourning for her love With sad unwearied plaint, "O where! where! where!"

New madrigals in each soft pulsing throat-- New life upleaping to the brooding air-- Still the heart answers to that questing note, "Soul of the vanished years, O where! where! where!"

Emily Huntington Miller [1833-1913]

THE SEA

SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS

I To-day a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships--of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, like a surge.

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay, Picked sparingly without noise by thee, old ocean, chosen by thee, Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations, Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee, Indomitable, untamed as thee.

(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing, Ever the stock preserved and never lost, though rare, enough for seed preserved.)

II Flaunt out, O sea, your separate flags of nations! Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals! But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty, Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old, A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors, All seas, all ships.

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

STANZAS From "The Triumph of Time"

I will go back to the great sweet mother,-- Mother and lover of men, the Sea. I will go down to her, I and none other, Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me; Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast; O fair white mother, in days long past Born without sister, born without brother, Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine, Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain. Save me and hide me with all thy waves, Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, Those pure cold populous graves of thine, Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide; My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips, I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside; Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were, Filled full with life to the eyes and hair. As a rose is fulfilled to the rose-leaf tips With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days, Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways, Alive and aware of thy waves and thee; Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, Clothed with the green, and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, A vein in the heart of the streams of the Sea.

Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say; Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again; Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they. But death is the worst that comes of thee; Thou art fed with our dead, O Mother, O Sea, But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when Having given us love, hast thou taken away?

O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart. The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, Shall they not vanish away and apart? But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth; Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth; Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

THE SEA From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

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 can not 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.

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake And monarchs 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 washed them power 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.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed,--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime,-- The image of Eternity,--the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy I wantoned with thy breakers,--they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear; For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane,--as I do here.

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

ON THE SEA