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The Voice of the Grass.

HERE I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
By the dusty road-side,
On the sunny hill-side,
Close by the noisy brook,
In every shady nook,

I come creeping, creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
All round the open door
Where sit the aged poor,

Here, where the children play
In the bright and merry May,

I come creeping, creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
In the noisy city street
My pleasant face you'll meet,
Cheering the sick at heart,
Toiling his busy part,

Silently creeping, creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
You cannot see me coming,
Nor hear my low sweet humming;
For in the starry night,

And the glad morning light,

I come quietly creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
More welcome than the flowers

In summer's pleasant hours;

The gentle cow is glad,

And the merry bird not sad,

To see me creeping, creeping everywhere.

Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
My humble song of praise

Most gratefully I raise

To Him, at whose command
I beautify the land,

Creeping, silently creeping everywhere.

SARAH ROBERTS.

The Skylark.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the

view.

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged

thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine :

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chant,

Match'd with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be :

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joys we ever should come near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness'

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

SHELLEY.

To a 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!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood,
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine ;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
WORDSWORTH.

Lo! here the gentle Lark!

Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty ;

Who doth the world so gloriously behold,

That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.

SHAKESPEARE.

To the Nightingale.

SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours
Of winters past or coming, void of care;

Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers:
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.

What soul can be so sick which by thy songs (Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven

Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs, And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven? Sweet, artless songster! thou my mind dost raise To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays. DRUMMOND.

A Nightingale Singing.

HER supple breast thrills out

Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill,
And folds in wavéd notes, with a trembling bill,
The pliant series of her slippery song;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng

Of short, thick sobs,

That roll themselves over her lubric throat
In panting murmurs 'stilled out of her breast,
That ever bubbling spring, the sugar'd nest
Of her delicious soul, that there doth lie
Bathing in streams of liquid melody.

CRASHAWE.

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