THE SKYLARK.

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 embower'd

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflower'd,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd 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,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

THE SKYLARK.

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.

THE SKYLARK.

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.

SUMMER.

ELIGHTFUL is this loneliness; it calms

My heart pleasant the cool beneath these elms,
That throw across the stream a moveless shade.
Here Nature in her midnoon whisper speaks;
How peaceful every sound!-the ring-dove's plaint,
Moan'd from the twilight centre of the grove,
While every other woodland lay is mute,

Save when the wren flits from her down-coved nest,

And from the root-sprig trills her ditty clear,

The grasshopper's oft-pausing chirp, the buzz,

Angrily shrill, of moss-entangled bee,

That, soon as loosed, booms with full twang away,

The sudden rushing of the minnow shoal,
Scared from the shallows by my passing tread.
Dimpling the water glides; with here and there
A glossy fly, skimming in circlets gay
The treacherous surface, while the quick-eyed trout
Watches his time to spring; or, from above,
Some feather'd dam, purveying 'mong the boughs,
Darts from her perch, and to her plumeless brood
Bears off the prize:sad emblem of man's lot!

GRAHAME.