SUMMER. 307 Summer. AROUND this lovely valley rise The purple hills of Paradise. Whose shores with many a shining rift Through all the long midsummer day I watch the mowers as they go Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row; The cattle graze; while warm and still The butterfly and bumble-bee High up the lone wood-pigeon sits, The swarming insects drone and hum, Where the vain bluebird trims his coat, As silently, as tenderly, The down of peace descends on me. I lie, and listen, and rejoice. JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. THE Sunset. HE moon is up, and yet it is not night: Where the day joins the past eternity; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest. A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still SPRING. Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 309 Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows, Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar, Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, Their magical variety diffuse: And now they change; a paler shadow strews Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues The last still loveliest, till 't is gone- and all is gray. LORD BYRON. Spring. HEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, WH The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain ; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil, and all the pain. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamor of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendor and speed of thy feet! For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, Fold our hands round her knees and cling? O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring! For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. The full streams feed on flower of rushes, And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, And soft as lips that laugh and hide, The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair DAFFODILS. The wild vine slipping down leaves bare Her bright breast shortening into sighs; To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare, 311 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINburne. I Daffodils. WANDERED 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 The waves beside them danced, but they A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company; I gazed, and gazed, but little thought For oft, when on my couch I lie, And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. |