THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE STOCK-DOVE. O nightingale! thou surely art A creature of a fiery heart : These notes of thine-they pierce and pierce! I heard a stock-dove sing or say TO THE CUCKOO. O blithe new-comer! I have heard, While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear, That seems to fill the whole air's space. Though babbling only, to the vale, Of sunshine and of flowers, Thou bringest unto me a tale Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird: but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery. The same whom in my schoolboy days Which made me look a thousand ways To seek thee did I often rove And I can listen to thee yet; O blessed bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home for thee! ODE-INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS There was a time, when meadow, grove, and stream, Apparell'd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose, The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, Doth every beast keep holiday; Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy! Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel-I feel it all. This sweet May morning, And the children are pulling, On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! But there's a tree, of many one, A single field which I have look'd upon, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The youth, who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can Behold the child among his new-born blisses, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, Ere this be thrown aside, The little actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" Were endless imitation. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? O joy! that in our embers The thought of our past years in me doth breed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal nature Those shadowy recollections, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being H |