The birds of air before us fleet, They cannot brook our shame to meet- And come again to-morrow. Ye fearless in your nests abide— Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, Your silent lessons, undescried By all but lowly eyes: For ye could draw th' admiring gaze Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour, His blessing on earth's primal bower, Ye felt it all renewed. What care ye now, if winter's storm Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, That daily court you and caress, 96 THE QUESTION. How few the happy secret find Of your calm loveliness! "Live for to-day! to-morrow's light KEBLE. THE QUESTION. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, dream. There grew pied windflowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth. The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it lears. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 13 98 THE HUSBANDMAN. Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!-Oh! to whom? SHELLEY THE HUSBANDMAN. (FROM A LONG POEM ENTITLED "LOCHLEVEN.") How blest the man, who, in these peaceful plains, Of rural life he dwells; and with him dwells By nature formed for the calm retreat, The silent path of life. Learned, but not fraught Who challenges respect by solemn face, With him spontaneous grows. Not books alone, To tread the ways of virtue, and to act The various scenes of life with God's applause. BRUCE. HUNTING SONG. THE heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn, Our lads gaed a-hunting ane day at the dawn. I red you beware at the hunting, young men; But cannily steal on a bonnie moor-hen. |