THE WOOD-CUTTER'S NIGHT SONG. So fare-ye-well! and hold your tongues; Sing no more until I come; All day long I love the oaks, Wife and children all are there, Supper hanging on the hooks. Soon as ever I get in, When my fagot down I fling, Teasing me to talk and sing. Welcome, red and roundy sun, Joyful are the thoughts of home; John Clare. 89 TO THE NIGHTINGALE. O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why. · Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. John Milton. TO THE EVENING STAR. STAR that bringest home the bee, And sett'st the weary laborer free! That send'st it from above, Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow Are sweet as hers we love. Come to the luxuriant skies, Whilst the landscape's odors rise, Whilst, far off, lowing herds are heard, And songs when toil is done, From cottages whose smoke unstirred SONG. Star of love's soft interviews, Too delicious to be riven, By absence, from the heart. Thomas Campbell. 91 Move eastward, happy Earth, and leave O, happy planet, eastward go; Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne, And move me to my marriage-morn, Alfred Tennyson. SONG. O WELCOME, bat, and owlėt gray, And welcome, shadows long and deep, Joanna Bailie. TO THE GLOW-WORM. TASTEFUL Illumination of the night, Bright scattered, twinkling star of spangled earth! Hail to thy nameless coloured dark-and-light, The witching nurse of thy illumined birth. In thy still hour how dearly I delight In lone spots, out of hearing, out of sight, To sigh day's smothered pains; and pause on thee, Bedecking dangling brier and ivied tree, Or diamonds tipping on the grassy spear; Thy pale-faced glimmering light I love to see, Gilding and glistering in the dew-drop near: O still-hour's mate! my easing heart sobs free, While tiny bents low bend with many an added tear. John Care. TO CYNTHIA. SONG. THE OWL. WHEN cats run home and light is come, And the whirring sail goes round, When merry milkmaids click the latch, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, Alfred Tennyson. TO CYNTHIA. QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close; 93 |