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THE WOOD-CUTTER'S NIGHT SONG.

So fare-ye-well! and hold your tongues;

Sing no more until I come;
They're not worthy of your songs
That never care to drop a crumb.

All day long I love the oaks,
But at nights, yon little cot,
When I see the chimney smokes,
Is by far the prettiest spot.

Wife and children all are there,
To revive with pleasant looks,
Table ready set, and chair,

Supper hanging on the hooks.

Soon as ever I get in,

When my fagot down I fling,
Little prattlers they begin

Teasing me to talk and sing.

Welcome, red and roundy sun,
Dropping lowly in the west;
Now my hard day's work is done,
I'm as happy as the best.

Joyful are the thoughts of home;
Now I'm ready for my chair;
So, till morrow-morning's come,
Bill and mittens, lie ye there!

John Clare.

89

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes, that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love. O if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate

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!

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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
Curls yellow in the sun.

SONG.

Star of love's soft interviews,
Parted lovers on thee muse;
Their remembrancer in Heaven
Of thrilling vows thou art,

Too delicious to be riven,

By absence, from the heart.

Thomas Campbell.

91

Move eastward, happy Earth, and leave
Your orange sunset waning slow;
From fringes of the faded eve,

O, happy planet, eastward go;
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise
To glass herself in dewy eyes.
That watch me from the glen below.

Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,

And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night.

Alfred Tennyson.

SONG.

O WELCOME, bat, and owlėt gray,
Thus winging lone your airy way;
And welcome, moth, and drowsy fly,
That to mine ear come humming by;

And welcome, shadows long and deep,
And stars that from the pale sky peep!
O welcome all! to me ye say,
My woodland love is on her way.
Upon the soft wind floats her hair,
Her breath is in the dewy air;
Her steps are in the whispered sound
That steals along the stilly ground.
O dawn of day, in rosy bower,
What art thou in this witching hour!
O noon of day, in sunshine bright,
What art thou in the fall of night!

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
To rest my weary bones, from labor free;

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 dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,

And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock has sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,

Twice or thrice his roundelay;

Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

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,
Goddess excellently bright!

Earth, let not thy envious shade

Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear when day did close;

93

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