74 SELF-REPROACH. For old, unhappy far-off things, Or is it some more humble lay, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang, Wordsworth. SELF-REPROACH. Within the heart is an avenging power, Conscious of right and wrong. shape There is no Reproach can take, one half so terrible BIRDS IN SUMMER. 75 Or soon, or late, there will be no escape From the stern consequence of its own act. But in ourselves is Fate's worst minister; There is no wretchedness like self-reproach. L. E. L. BIRDS IN SUMMER. How pleasant the life of a bird must be, How pleasant the life of a bird must be, What joy it must be, to sail, upborne By a strong, free wing, through the rosy morn, To meet the young sun face to face, And pierce, like a shaft through boundless space. 76 BIRDS IN SUMMER, To pass through the bowers of the silver cloud, And to sing in the thunder halls aloud; Oh, what would I give, like a bird to go How pleasant the life of a bird must be ! Then wheeling about with its mates at play, What joy it must be, like a living breeze, The wastes of the blossoming purple heath, And the yellow furze, like a field of gold That gladdens some fairy region old :— On mountain tops, on the billowy sea, ENDYMION AND PEONA. On the leafy stem of the forest tree, 77 Mary Howitt. ENDYMION AND PEONA. SISTERLY SOOTHING. She led him Along a path between two little streamsGuarding his forehead with her round elbow, From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slow, From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small; Until they came to where these streamlets fall, With mingled bubblings and a gentle rush, Into a river clear, brimful, and flush With crystal mocking of the trees and sky. A little shallop, floating there hard by, Pointed its beak over the fringed bank; And soon it lightly dipp'd, and rose, and sank, And dipp'd again, with the young couple's weight; Peona guiding, through the water straight 78 ENDYMION AND FEONA. Towards a bowery island opposite; So she was gently glad to see him laid And as a willow keeps A patient watch over the stream that creeps Windingly by it, so the quiet maid Held her in peace; so that a whispering blade Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling Down in the blue-bells, or a wren light rustling Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard. Keats. |