And wearily at length should fare; He needs but look about, and there Thou art! a friend at hand, to scare His melancholy. A hundred times, by rock or bower, Some steady love; some brief delight; If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to thee should turn, I drink out of an humbler urn A lowlier pleasure; The homely sympathy that heeds The common life, our nature breeds; Of hearts at leisure. Fresh-smitten by the morning ray, With kindred gladness : And when, at dusk, by dews opprest Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest Hath often eased my pensive breast And all day long I number yet, An instinct call it, a blind sense; Coming one knows not how, nor whence, Child of the Year! that round dost run Thy pleasant course, when day 's begun As ready to salute the sun As lark or leveret, Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain ; Nor be less dear to future men Than in old time; thou not in vain Art Nature's favorite.* 1802. See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honors for merly paid to this flower. VIII. TO THE SAME FLOWER. WITH little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Thou unassuming Commonplace Oft on the dappled turf at ease Loose types of things through all degrees, And many a fond and idle name I give to thee, for praise or blame, A nun demure, of lowly port; Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, Of all temptations; A queen in crown of rubies drest; A starveling in a scanty vest; Are all, as seems to suit thee best, Thy appellations. A little cyclops, with one eye That thought comes next, and instantly The freak is over, The shape will vanish, and behold A silver shield with boss of gold, That spreads itself, some faery bold I see thee glittering from afar, In heaven above thee! Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Bright Flower! for by that name at last, I call thee, and to that cleave fast, That breath'st with me in sun and air, Do thou, as thou art wont, repair IX. 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 In all this covert of the blest: Hail to thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, Linnet! in thy green array, Presiding spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; And this is thy dominion. While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, Make all one band of paramours, Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, Art sole in thy employment: A Life, a Presence like the air, Thyself thy own enjoyment. |