132 THE DAFFODILS. THE DAFFODILS. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Continuous as the stars that shine Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they In such a jocund company: I gazed-and gazed-but little thought For oft, when on my couch I lie W. Wordsworth. SEA MEWS IN WINTER-TIME. 133 SEA MEWS IN WINTER-TIME. I WALKED beside a dark grey sea, For joy and warmth from thee depart. "Yon rising wind licks off the snow, Winds on the crag each other chase, "The sea is cold, and dark its rim, I spoke, and drew toward a rock Where many mews made twittering sweet; Their wings upreared, the clustering flock Did pat the sea-grass with their feet. A rock but half submerged, the sea A wondering in my fancy bred. Joy companied with every cry, Joy in their food, in that keen wind, That heaving sea, that shaded sky, And in themselves, and in their kind. 134 SEA MEWS IN WINTER-TIME. The phantoms of the deep at play! And delicate lifting up of wings. Then all at once a flight, and fast The lovely crowd flew out to sea; Earth had not looked more changed to me. "Where is the cold? Yon clouded skies "The cold is not in crag, nor scar, "No, nor in yon exultant wind That shakes the oak and bends the pine, With that I felt the gloom depart, And thoughts within me did unfold, Whose sunshine warmed me to the heart I walked in joy, and was not cold. F. Ingelow. TO A SKYLARK. 135 TO A SKYLARK. HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, 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. 136 TO A SKYLARK. All the earth and air As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. 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, To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, 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 embower'd In its own green leaves, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. |