Page images
PDF
EPUB

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 loud note smites my ear!
From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off, and near!

I hear thee babbling to the vale

Of sunshine and of flowers;

And unto me thou bring'st a tale

Of visionary hours.

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 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!

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

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, fairy place;

That is fit home for thee!

YEW-TREES.

THERE is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they marched

To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree!-a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note

Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,

Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;

Huge trunks and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially-beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries-ghostly Shapes

May meet at noontide-Fear and trembling Hope,

Silence and Foresight-Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow,-there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple scattered o'er

[graphic][ocr errors]

With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose

To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

NUTTING.

It seems a day

(I speak of one from many singled out),
One of those heavenly days which cannot die ;
When forth I sallied from our cottage-door,
With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung,
A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps
Towards the distant woods, a Figure quaint,
Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds
Which for that service had been husbanded,
By exhortation of my frugal Dame.

Motley accoutrement-of power to smile

At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,—and, in truth,
More ragged than need was! Among the woods,
And o'er the pathless rocks, I forced my way,
Until at length I came to one dear nook
Unvisited, where not a broken bough

Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign
Of devastation; but the hazels rose

Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,
A virgin scene! A little while I stood,
Breathing with such suppression of the heart
As joy delights in; and, with wise restraint
Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed

The banquet-or beneath the trees I sat
Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played;

A temper known to those, who, after long

And weary expectation, have been blessed

With sudden happiness beyond all hope.
Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves

« PreviousContinue »