POEMS OF NATURE.

Fears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some drome despoir
Rise in the heart & gather to the eyes
on the happy autumn fields,

that are no more.

In looking and thinking

on the

days that

Shinyon

POEMS OF NATURE.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

WORLDLINESS.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT.
The World is too much with us; late and soon, Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born !

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
Little we see in nature that is ours;

May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light,
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! And never but in unapproached light
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, The winds that will be howling at all hours

Bright effluence of bright essence increate. And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, whose fountain who shall tell ? before the siin,

Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream, For this, for everything, we are out of tune ;

Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice It moves us not. — Great God! I'd rather be Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, - The rising world of waters dark and deep, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Won from the void and formless infinite.
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Thee 1 revisit now with bolder wing,
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn. In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight

Through utterand through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
DAYBREAK..

The dark descent, and up to reascend, A WIND came up out of the sea,

Though hard and rare : thee I revisit safe, And said, “O mists, make room for me!” And feel thy sovereign vital lamp ; but thou

Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on, To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; Ye mariners, the night is gone.”

So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, And hurried landward far away,

Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Crying, “Awake! it is the day.”

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, It said unto the forest, “Shout!

Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief Hang all your leafy banners out!”

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,

That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, And said, “O bird, awake and sing !”

Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget

Those other two equalled with me in fate,
And o'er the farms, “() chanticleer, So were I equalled with them in renown,
Your clarion blow; the day is near !” Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
It whispered to the fields of corn,

And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old : “ Bow down, and hail the coming morn!”

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird It shouted through the belfry-tower, Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid “Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour." Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,

Seasons return, but not to me returns
And said, “Not yet ! in quiet lie.”

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; The whistling ploughman stalks afield ; and, But cloud, instead, and ever-during dark,

hark ! Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

rings; Presented with a universal blank

Through rustling corn the hare astonished Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,

springs ; And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour; So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower, Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower. Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

JAMES BEATTIE. Of things invisible to mortal sight.

MILTON.

THE SABBATH MORNING.

PACK CLOUDS AWAY.

With silent awe I hail the sacred morn,

That slowly wakes while all the fields are still ! Pack clouds away, and welcome day, A soothing calm on every breeze is borne ; With night we banish sorrow;

A graver murmur gurgles from the rill ; Sweet air, blow soft ; mount, lark, aloft, And echo answers softer from the hill; To give my love good morrow.

And softer sings the linnet from the thorn : Wings from the wind to please her mind, The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. Notes from the lark I 'll borrow :

Hail, light serene ! hail, sacred Sabbath morn!
Bird, prune thy wing ; nightingale, sing, The rooks float silent by in airy drove ;
To give my love good morrow.

The sun a placid yellow lustre throws ;
To give my love good morrow,

The gales that lately sighed along the grove
Notes from them all I 'll borrow.

Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose ;

The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move, Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast, So smiled the day when the first morn arose ! Sing, birds, in every furrow ;

DR. JOHN LEYDEN. And from each hill let music shrill

Give my fair love good morrow. Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,

REVE DU MIDI.
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,

WHEN o'er the mountain steeps
Sing my fair love good morrow.

The hazy noontide creeps,
To give my love good morrow,

And the shrill cricket sleeps
Sing, birds, in every furrow.

Under the grass ;
THOMAS HEYWOOD.

When soft the shadows lie,
And clouds sail o'er the sky,

And the idle winds go by,
MORNING.

With the heavy scent of blossoms as they pass, –
THE MINSTREL."

Then, when the silent stream
But who the melodies of morn can tell ?

Lapses as in a dream,
The wild brook babbling down the mountain And the water-lilies gleam

Up to the sun ;
The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell ; When the hot and burdened day
The pipe of early shepherd dim descried

Rests on its downward way,
In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide

When the moth forgets to play, The clamorous horn along the cliffs above; And the plodding ant may dream her work is The hollow murmur of the ocean tide ;

done, The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. Then, from the noise of war

And the din of earth afar, The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark ;

Like some forgotten star Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid Dropt from the sky, sings;

The sounds of love and fear,

FROM

side ;