Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birth-place of valour, the country of worth; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 8 Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below; Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring. floods! My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer: 1790. Robert Burns. TO THE CUCKOO HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove! Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, What time the daisy decks the green, 8 1770. And hear the sound of music sweet The school-boy, wandering through the To pull the primose gay, Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear, What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, Another spring to hail. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year! O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! 12 16 20 24 28 John Logan. TO THE CUCKOO OBLITHE New-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice. O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, While I am lying on the grass Though babbling only to the Vale, Of sunshine and of flowers, Thou bringest unto me a tale Of visionary hours. 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 Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou were still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen. And I can listen to thee yet; 12 16 20 24 28 O blessed bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home for Thee! 1804. 1807. 32 William Wordsworth. TO THE SKYLARK ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still! [To the last point of vision, and beyond Mount, daring warbler!-that love-prompted strain 'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bondThrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy Spring.] Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 12 Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Home. 18 1827. William Wordsworth.. DAFFODILS I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Continuous as the stars that shine Ten thousand saw I at a glance, The waves beside them danced; but they A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: 12 I gazed-and gazed-but little thought |