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THE SKYLARK.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lanp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

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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 aërial 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-wingéd 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 chant,

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.

THE SKYLARK.

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.

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To the Cuckoo.

HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!

Thou messenger of Spring!

Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear.
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy, wandering through the wood

To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, thy most curious voice 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,
Another Spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year!

Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Attendants on the Spring.

JOHN LOGAN

THE RIVER.

The Two Oceans.

WO seas amid the night,

TWO

In the moonshine roll and sparkle,

Now spread in the silver light,

Now sadden, and wail, and darkle.

The one has a billowy motion,

And from land to land it gleams;

The other is sleep's wide ocean,

And its glimmering waves are dreams.

The one, with murmur and roar,

Bears fleets round coast and islet;

The other, without a shore,

Ne'er knew the track of a pilot.

ANONYMOUS

The River.

RIVER! River! little River!

Bright you sparkle on your way

O'er the yellow pebbles dancing,
Through the flowers and foliage glancing,
Like a Child at play.

River! River! swelling River!

On you rush o'er rough and smooth

Louder, faster, brawling, leaping,
Over rocks, by rose-banks sweeping,
Like impetuous Youth.

River! River! brimming River!

Broad, and deep, and still as Time,

Seeming still-yet still in motion,

Tending onward to the ocean,

Just like Mortal Prime.

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