Then around you we'll dance, and around you we'll

sing

To soft pipe and sweet tabor we'll foot it away; And the hills, and the dales, and the forests shall ring,

While we hail you our lovely young Queen of the May. George Darley.

SONG.

PACK clouds away, and welcome day,
With night we banish sorrow:
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft,
To give my love good-morrow.
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow:
Bird, prune thy wing; nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow.
To give my love good-morrow,
Notes from them all I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,
You pretty clves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow.
To give my love good-morrow,
Sing, birds, in every furrow.

Thomas Heywood.

TO A SKYLARK.

Up with me, up with me, into the clouds! For thy song, lark, is strong,

Up with me, up with me, into the clouds!

Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me, till I find

The spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And to-day my heart is weary;
Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me, high and high,
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning,
Thou art laughing and scorning:

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken lark! thou wouldst be loath
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river,
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

TO THE CUCKOO.

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures when life's day is done.

William Wordsworth.

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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,
Thon 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.

TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Een yet thou art to me

THE GREEN LINNET.

No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same that in my school-boy days
I listened to that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways,

In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love-
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessed bird! the earth we pace,

Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place,

That is fit home for thee!

William Wordsworth.

THE GREEN LINNET.

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs, that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread,

Of Spring's unclouded weather-
In this sequestered nook, how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

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