Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite, or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt,— A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain ? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be; Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not; With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. SHELLEY. Hester. WHEN maidens such as Hester die, A month or more hath she been dead, A springy motion in her gait, Of pride and joy no common rate, I know not by what name beside She did inherit. Her parents held the Quaker rule, But she was trained in Nature's school, A waking eye, a prying mind, A heart that stirs, is hard to bind, My sprightly neighbour! gone before When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Auld Robin Gray. CHARLES LAMB. When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame, The woes of my heart fa' in showers frae my ee, Young Jamie looed me weel, and sought me for his bride, Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day, my Jamie was at sea My mother she fell sick- My father cou'dna work-my mother cou'dna spin ; My heart it said na, and I looked for Jamie back; My father argued sair-my mother didna speak, I hadna been his wife, a week but only four, O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a'; I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin; LADY ANNE BARNARD. |