A JUNE DAY.

Where slowly stray those lonely sheep
Through the tall foxglove's crimson bloom,
And gleaming of the scatter'd broom.
Love you not, then, to list and hear
The crackling of the gorse-flowers near,
Pouring an orange-scented tide

Of fragrance o'er the desert wide?
To hear the buzzard whimpering shrill,
Hovering above you high and still?
The twittering of the bird that dwells
Amongst the heath's delicious bells?
While round your bed, o'er fern and blade,
Insects in green and gold array'd,
The sun's gay tribes have lightly stray'd;
And sweeter sound their humming wings
Than the proud minstrel's echoing strings.

HOWITT.

THE SKYLARK.

AIL 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 deep blue thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

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.

THE SKYLARK.

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 overflow'd.

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.