Page images
PDF
EPUB

SONG.

Such was the happy garden state,

While man there walked without a mate:

After a place so pure and sweet,

What other help could yet be meet!

But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises are in one,
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gard'ner drew
Of flowers, and herbs, this dial new!
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers?

Andrew Marvell.

SONG.

HAYMAKERS, rakers, reapers, and mowers,
Wait on your Summer-queen;

Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers,
Daffodils strew the green:

Sing, dance, and play,

'Tis holiday:

The Sun does bravely shine

On our ears of corn.

Rich as a pearl

Comes every girl :

61

This is mine, this is mine, this is mine!

Let us die ere away they be borne.

Bow to the Sun, to our queen, and that fair one

Come to behold our sports:

Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one,

As those in a prince's courts.
These and we,

With country glee,

Will teach the woods to resound,
And the hills with echoes hollow;
Skipping lambs

Their bleating dams,

'Mongst kids-shall trip it round; For joy thus our wenches we follow.

Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly,

Hounds, make a lusty cry;

Spring up, you falconers, the partridges freely, Then let your brave hawks fly.

Horses amain,

Over ridge, over plain,

The dogs have the stag in chase:
'Tis a sport to content a king.

So, ho, ho! through the skies
How the proud bird flies,

And sousing, kills with a grace!

Now the deer falls: hark, how they ring!

John Ford.

[blocks in formation]

ALL how silent and how still;
Nothing heard but yonder mill:
While the dazzled eye surveys
All around a liquid blaze;
And amid the scorching gleams,
If we earnest look, it seems
As if crooked bits of glass
Seemed repeatedly to pass.
Oh, for a puffing breeze to blow!
But breezes are all strangers now;
Not a twig is seen to shake,
Nor the smallest bent to quake;
From the river's muddy side.
Not a curve is seen to glide;
And no longer on the stream,
Watching, lics the silver bream,
Forcing, from repeated springs,
"Verges in successive rings."
Bees are faint, and cease to hum;
Birds are overpowered and dumb.
Rural voices all are mute,
Tuneless lie the pipe and flute;
Shepherds, with their panting sheep,
In the swaliest corner creep;
And from the tormenting heat
All are wishing to retreat.
Huddled up in grass and flowers,

Mowers wait for cooler hours;

And the cow-boy seeks the sedge,
Romping in the woodland hedge,
While his cattle o'er the vales
Scamper, with uplifted tails;
Others, not so wild and mad,
That can better bear the gad,
Underneath the hedge-row lunge,
Or, if nigh, in waters plunge.
Oh! to see how flowers are took,
How it grieves me when I look;
Ragged-robins, once so pink,
Now are turned as black as ink,
And the leaves, being scorched so much,
Even crumble at the touch;

Drowking lies the meadow-sweet,

Flopping down beneath one's feet:
While to all the flowers that blow,
If in open air they grow,
Th' injurious deed alike is done
By the hot, relentless sun.
E'en the dew is parched up
From the teasel's jointed cup:
O poor birds! where must ye fly,
Now your water-pots are dry?
If ye stay upon the heath,

Ye'll be choaked and clammed to death:

Therefore leave the shadeless goss,

Seek the spring-head lined with moss;

There your little feet may stand,
Safely printing on the sand;
While, in full possession, where

Purling eddies ripple clear,

TO A RED CLOVER BLOSSOM.

65

You, with ease and plenty blest,
Sip the coolest and the best.
Then away! and wet your throats;
Cheer me with your warbling notes;
'Twill hot noon the more revive;
While I wander to contrive

For myself a place as good,
In the middle of a wood:
There, aside some mossy bank,
Where the grass, in bunches rank,
Lifts its down on spindles high,
Shall be where I'll choose to lie;
Fearless of the things that creep,

Then I'll think, and then I'll sleep;
Caring not to stir at all,

Till the dew begins to fall.

John Clare.

TO A RED CLOVER BLOSSOM.

SWEET bottle-shaped flower of lushy red,

Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze, Among the meadow's waving grasses spread,

Or 'neath the shade of hedge or clumping trees,

Bowing on slender stem thy heavy head,

In sweet delight I view thy summer bed,
And list the drone of heavy humblebees
Along thy honeyed garden gayly led,

Down corn-fields, striped balks, and pasture-leas.
Fond warmings of the soul, that long have fled,

5

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »