TO THE CUCKOO. O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard, O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, While I am lying on the grass Though babbling only to the Vale, 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 cn the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love Still longed for, never seen. And I can listen to thee yet; That golden time again. O blessed Bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home or Thee! SONNET, COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE NEAR CALAIS, FAIR Star of evening, Splendor of the west, TO THE SONS OF BURNS, AFTER VISITING THE GRAVE OF THEIR FATHER. 'MID crowded obelisks and urns I sought the untimely grave of Burns; And more would grieve, but that it turns Through twilight shades of good and ill If ye would give the better will Hath Nature strung your nerves to bear Like him can speed The social hour of tenfold care For honest men delight will take And of your Father's name will make Far from their noisy haunts retire There seek the genius of your Sire, O where, 'mid "lonely heights and hows," Bedewed with toil, While reapers strove, or busy ploughs His judgment with benignant ray Let faith be given; Nor deem that "light which leads astray, Is light from Heaven.” Let no mean hope you souls enslave; But be admonished by his grave, And think, and fear! SONNET. Oh what a wreck! how changed in mien and speech Yet though dread Powers, that work in mystery spin Entanglings of the brain; though shadows stretch O'er the chilled heart reflect; far, far within She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch, But delegated Spirits comfort fetch To Her from heights that Reason may not win. THE FARMER OF TILSBURY VALE. 'Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, |