Day-stars! that ope your frownless eyes to twinkle
From rainbow galaxies of earth’s creation,
And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle
As a libation.
Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly
Before the uprisen sun, God’s lidless eye,
Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy
Incense on high.
Ye bright...
When hath wind or rain
Borne hard upon weak plant that wanted me,
And I (however they might bluster round)
Walkt off? ’T were most ungrateful; for sweet scents
Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts,
And nurse and pillow the dull memory
That would let drop without them her best stores.
They bring me tales of youth and tones of...
I Wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,—
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along...
On Turning One Down with the Plough in April, 1786
WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou ’s met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.
Alas! it ’s no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee ’...
Anonymous translation from the German
THE ANGEL of the flowers, one day,
Beneath a rose-tree sleeping lay,—
That spirit to whose charge ’t is given
To bathe young buds in dews of heaven.
Awaking from his light repose,
The angel whispered to the rose:
“O fondest object of my care,
Still fairest found, where all are fair;
...
From “Irish Melodies”
’T IS the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud, is nigh
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!
I ’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are...
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...
Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.
What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear.
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of...
O Blithe new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
A cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.
Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou...
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!
To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring warbler...
