Child of the Year! that round dost run
Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun
As morning Leveret,
Thy long-lost praise* thou shalt regain;
Dear shalt thou be to future men
As in old time; - thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite.
A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;
Then - all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless Oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze-
- no breath of air
Yet here, and there, and every where
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
* See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.
BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my Orchard-seat!
And Birds and Flowers once more to greet,
My last year's Friends together.
One have I marked, the happiest Guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion,
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.
While Birds, and Butterflies, and Flowers,
Make all one Band of Paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;
A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.
Upon yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.
My dazzled sight the Bird deceives,
A Brother of the dancing Leaves;
Then flits, and from the Cottage eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;
As if by that exulting strain
He mocked and treated with disdain The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes.
WITHIN her gilded cage confined,
I saw a dazzling Belle,
A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is NON-PAREIL,
Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature's skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curved bill.
Her plumy Mantle's living hues
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendour that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.
And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice
Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.
But, exiled from Australian Bowers,
And singleness her lot,
She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note.
No more of pity for regrets
With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,
Or spite, if cause be given;
Arch, volatile, a sportive Bird
By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard,
And pleased to be admired!
This moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry,
Harbours a self-contented Wren,
Not shunning man's abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken.
Strange places, coverts unendeared
She never tried; the very nest
In which this Child of Spring was reared,
Is warmed, thro' winter, by her feathery breast.
To the bleak winds she sometimes gives
A slender unexpected strain;
That tells the Hermitess still lives,
Though she appear not, and be sought in vain.
Say, Dora! tell me by yon placid Moon,
If called to choose between the favoured pair,
Which would you be, the Bird of the Saloon,
By Lady fingers tended with nice care,
Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed,
Or Nature's DARKLING of this mossy Shed?
PANSIES, Lilies, Kingcups, Daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are Violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.
Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
*Common Pilewort.
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