Rise! Sleep no more! ’T is a noble morn.
The dews hang thick on the fringèd thorn,
And the frost shrinks back like a beaten hound,
Under the steaming, steaming ground.
Behold, where the billowy clouds flow by,
And leave us alone in the clear gray sky!
Our horses are ready and steady.—So, ho!
I ’m gone, like a dart from the Tartar’s bow....
-
-
From “Britannia’s Pastorals,” Bk. I. Song 5
THEN as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food,
Sits pertly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,
Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys,
To share with him, come with so great a noise
That he is forced to... -
The Dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn:
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn,
And a hunting we will go.The wife around her husband throws
Her arms to make him stay;
“My dear, it rains, it hails, it blows;
You cannot hunt to-day.”
Yet a... -
From “The Lady of the Lake,” Canto I.
THE STAG at eve had drunk his fill,
Where danced the moon on Monan’s rill,
And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade;
But, when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich’s head,
The deep-mouthed bloodhound’s heavy bay
Resounded up the rocky way,
And... -
From “The Seasons: Autumn”
THE STAG too, singled from the herd where long
He ranged, the branching monarch of the shades,
Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed
He, sprightly, puts his faith; and, roused by fear,
Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight.
Against the breeze he darts, that way the more
To leave the lessening... -
I Like the hunting of the hare
Better than that of the fox;
I like the joyous morning air,
And the crowing of the cocks.I like the calm of the early fields,
The ducks asleep by the lake,
The quiet hour which Nature yields
Before mankind is awake.I like the pheasants and feeding things
Of the unsuspicious... -
No more the battle or the chase
The phantom tribes pursue,
But each in its accustomed place
The Autumn hails anew:
And still from solemn councils set
On every hill and plain,
The smoke of many a calumet
Ascends to heaven again. -
NO sun—no moon!
No morn—no noon—
No dawn—no dust—no proper time of day—
No sky—no earthly view—
No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’ other side the way”—
No end to any Row—
No indications where the Crescents go—
No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of... -
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder ’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O it ’s then ’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night... -
The Warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year
On the earth her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold...