With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequester'd nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat,

And flowers and birds once more to greet,

My last year's friends together!

One have I mark'd, 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,

Scattering thy gladness without care,

Too blest with any one to pair;
Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perch'd in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives-
A brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mock'd and treated with disdain
The voiceless Form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.

W. Wordsworth.

CCXCII.

BONNIE LESLIE.

O SAW ye bonnie Lesley

As she gaed o'er the border ? She's gane, like Alexander,

To spread her conquests farther.

To see her is to love her,

And love but her for ever;

For Nature made her what she is,
And ne'er made sic anither!

Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,
Thy subjects we, before thee;
Thou art divine, fair Lesley;

The hearts o' men adore thee.

The Deil he could na scaith thee,

Or aught that wad belang thee; He'd look into thy bonnie face,

And say "I canna wrang thee!"

The Powers aboon will tent thee;
Misfortune sha' na steer thee;
Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely
That ill they'll ne'er let near thee.

Return again, fair Lesley,
Return to Caledonie !

That we may brag we hae a lass
There's nane again sae bonnie.

Robert Burns.

CCXCIII.

THE DAFFODILS.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :—
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!

I gazed-and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

W. Wordsworth.

CCXCIV.

UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE
SEPT. 3, 1802.

EARTH has not anything to show more fair :
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky,All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

W. Wordsworth.

CCXCV.

THE BANKS OF DOON.

YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon
How can ye bloom sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,

That sings upon the bough;

Thou minds me o' the happy days

When my fause Luve was true.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love:
And sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Frae aff its thorny tree;

And my fause luver staw the rose,

But left the thorn wi' me.-Robert Burns.

CCXCVI.

THE SOLITARY REAPER.

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.