Vous n’avez pas eu toute patience,
Cela se comprend par malheur, de reste ;
Vous êtes si jeune ! Et l’insouciance,
C’est le lot amer de l’âge céleste !
Vous n’avez pas eu toute la douceur,
Cela par malheur d’ailleurs se comprend ;
Vous êtes si jeune, ô ma froide sœur,
Que votre cœur doit être indifférent !
Aussi, me voici plein de pardons...
O lonesome sea-gull, floating far
Over the ocean’s icy waste,
Aimless and wide thy wanderings are,
Forever vainly seeking rest:—
Where is thy mate, and where thy nest?
’Twixt wintry sea and wintry sky,
Cleaving the keen air with thy breast,
Thou sailest slowly, solemnly;
No fetter on thy wing is pressed:—
...
I heard the bells of Bethlehem ring—
Their voice was sweeter than the priests’;
I heard the birds of Bethlehem sing
Unbidden in the churchly feasts.
They clung and sung on the swinging chain
High in the dim and incensed air;
The priests, with repetitions vain,
Chanted a never-ending prayer.
So bell and bird and priest...
From “The Pelican Island”
—BIRDS, the free tenants of land, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace;
In plumage, delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burden, close as fishes’ scales,
Or loose as full-grown poppies to the breeze;
With wings that might have had a soul within them,
They bore their owners by such sweet...
From “The Task,” Book I.
TEN thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The livelong night: nor these alone, whose notes
Nice-fingered Art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and ev’n the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for men....
In this May-month, by grace
of heaven, things shoot apace.
The waiting multitude
of fair boughs in the wood,—
How few days have arrayed
their beauty in green shade!
What have I seen or heard?
it was the yellow bird
Sang in the tree: he flew
a flame against the blue;
Upward he flashed. Again,
...
Further in Summer than the Birds -
Pathetic from the Grass -
A minor Nation celebrates
It's unobtrusive Mass.
No Ordinance be seen -
So gradual the Grace
A gentle Custom it becomes -
Enlarging Loneliness -
Antiquest felt at Noon -
When August is burning low...
