Written by
Robert Burns |
GUID-MORNIN’ to our Majesty!
May Heaven augment your blisses
On ev’ry new birth-day ye see,
A humble poet wishes.
My bardship here, at your Levee
On sic a day as this is,
Is sure an uncouth sight to see,
Amang thae birth-day dresses
Sae fine this day.
I see ye’re complimented thrang,
By mony a lord an’ lady;
“God save the King” ’s a cuckoo sang
That’s unco easy said aye:
The poets, too, a venal gang,
Wi’ rhymes weel-turn’d an’ ready,
Wad gar you trow ye ne’er do wrang,
But aye unerring steady,
On sic a day.
For me! before a monarch’s face
Ev’n there I winna flatter;
For neither pension, post, nor place,
Am I your humble debtor:
So, nae reflection on your Grace,
Your Kingship to bespatter;
There’s mony waur been o’ the race,
And aiblins ane been better
Than you this day.
’Tis very true, my sovereign King,
My skill may weel be doubted;
But facts are chiels that winna ding,
An’ downa be disputed:
Your royal nest, beneath your wing,
Is e’en right reft and clouted,
And now the third part o’ the string,
An’ less, will gang aboot it
Than did ae day. 1
Far be’t frae me that I aspire
To blame your legislation,
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire,
To rule this mighty nation:
But faith! I muckle doubt, my sire,
Ye’ve trusted ministration
To chaps wha in barn or byre
Wad better fill’d their station
Than courts yon day.
And now ye’ve gien auld Britain peace,
Her broken shins to plaister,
Your sair taxation does her fleece,
Till she has scarce a tester:
For me, thank God, my life’s a lease,
Nae bargain wearin’ faster,
Or, faith! I fear, that, wi’ the geese,
I shortly boost to pasture
I’ the craft some day.
I’m no mistrusting Willie Pitt,
When taxes he enlarges,
(An’ Will’s a true guid fallow’s get,
A name not envy spairges),
That he intends to pay your debt,
An’ lessen a’ your charges;
But, God-sake! let nae saving fit
Abridge your bonie barges
An’boats this day.
Adieu, my Liege; may freedom geck
Beneath your high protection;
An’ may ye rax Corruption’s neck,
And gie her for dissection!
But since I’m here, I’ll no neglect,
In loyal, true affection,
To pay your Queen, wi’ due respect,
May fealty an’ subjection
This great birth-day.
Hail, Majesty most Excellent!
While nobles strive to please ye,
Will ye accept a compliment,
A simple poet gies ye?
Thae bonie bairntime, Heav’n has lent,
Still higher may they heeze ye
In bliss, till fate some day is sent
For ever to release ye
Frae care that day.
For you, young Potentate o’Wales,
I tell your highness fairly,
Down Pleasure’s stream, wi’ swelling sails,
I’m tauld ye’re driving rarely;
But some day ye may gnaw your nails,
An’ curse your folly sairly,
That e’er ye brak Diana’s pales,
Or rattl’d dice wi’ Charlie
By night or day.
Yet aft a ragged cowt’s been known,
To mak a noble aiver;
So, ye may doucely fill the throne,
For a’their clish-ma-claver:
There, him 2 at Agincourt wha shone,
Few better were or braver:
And yet, wi’ funny, ***** Sir John, 3
He was an unco shaver
For mony a day.
For you, right rev’rend Osnaburg,
Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter,
Altho’ a ribbon at your lug
Wad been a dress completer:
As ye disown yon paughty dog,
That bears the keys of Peter,
Then swith! an’ get a wife to hug,
Or trowth, ye’ll stain the mitre
Some luckless day!
Young, royal Tarry-breeks, I learn,
Ye’ve lately come athwart her—
A glorious galley, 4 stem and stern,
Weel rigg’d for Venus’ barter;
But first hang out, that she’ll discern,
Your hymeneal charter;
Then heave aboard your grapple airn,
An’ large upon her quarter,
Come full that day.
Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a’,
Ye royal lasses dainty,
Heav’n mak you guid as well as braw,
An’ gie you lads a-plenty!
But sneer na British boys awa!
For kings are unco scant aye,
An’ German gentles are but sma’,
They’re better just than want aye
On ony day.
Gad bless you a’! consider now,
Ye’re unco muckle dautit;
But ere the course o’ life be through,
It may be bitter sautit:
An’ I hae seen their coggie fou,
That yet hae tarrow’t at it.
But or the day was done, I trow,
The laggen they hae clautit
Fu’ clean that day.
Note 1. The American colonies had recently been lost. [back]
Note 2. King Henry V.—R. B. [back]
Note 3. Sir John Falstaff, vid. Shakespeare.—R. B. [back]
Note 4. Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain Royal sailor’s amour.—R. B. This was Prince William Henry, third son of George III, afterward King William IV. [back]
|
Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
For things we never mention,
For Art misunderstood --
For excellent intention
That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
From clouds we would not clear --
Beyond the Law's pursuing
We fled, and settled here.
We took no tearful leaving,
We bade no long good-byes;
Men talked of crime and thieving,
Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
'T was time and time to go --
Behind was dock and Dartmoor,
Ahead lay Callao!
The widow and the orphan
That pray for ten per cent,
They clapped their trailers on us
To spy the road we went.
They watched the foreign sailings
(They scan the shipping still),
And that's your Christian people
Returning good for ill!
God bless the thoughtfull islands
Where never warrants come;
God bless the just Republics
That give a man a home,
That ask no foolish questions,
But set him on his feet;
And save his wife and daughters
From the workhouse and the street!
On church and square and market
The noonday silence falls;
You'll hear the drowsy mutter
Of the fountain in our halls.
Asleep amid the yuccas
The city takes her ease --
Till twilight brings the land-wind
To the clicking jalousies.
Day long the diamond weather,
The high, unaltered blue --
The smell of goats and incense
And the mule-bells tinkling through.
Day long the warder ocean
That keeps us from our kin,
And once a month our levee
When the English mail comes in.
You'll find us up and waiting
To treat you at the bar;
You'll find us less exclusive
Than the average English are.
We'll meet you with a carriage,
Too glad to show you round,
But -- we do not lunch on steamers,
For they are English ground.
We sail o' nights to England
And join our smiling Boards --
Our wives go in with Viscounts
And our daughters dance with Lords,
But behind our princely doings,
And behind each coup we make,
We feel there's Something Waiting,
And -- we meet It when we wake.
Ah God! One sniff of England --
To greet our flesh and blood --
To hear the traffic slurring
Once more through London mud!
Our towns of wasted honour --
Our streets of lost delight!
How stands the old Lord Warden?
Are Dover's cliffs still white?
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on the floor . . .
Alas! your dancing days are nearly done.
I've played you from the palm-belt to the suburbs of the Pole;
From the silver-tipped sierras to the sea.
The gay and gilded cabin and the grimy glory-hole
Have echoed to your impish melody.
I've hushed you in the dug-out when the trench was stiff with dead;
I've lulled you by the coral-laced lagoon;
I've packed you on a camel from the dung-fire on the bled,
To the hell-for-breakfast Mountains of the Moon.
I've ground you to the shanty men, a-whooping heel and toe,
And the hula-hula graces in the glade.
I've swung you in the igloo to the lousy Esquimau,
And the Haussa at a hundred in the shade.
The ****** on the levee, and the Dinka by the Nile
have shuffled to your insolent appeal.
I've rocked with glee the chimpanzee, and mocked the crocodile,
And shocked the pompous penquin and the seal.
I've set the yokels singing in a little Surrey pub,
Apaches swinging in a Belville bar.
I've played an obligato to the tom-tom's rub-a-dub,
And the throb of Andalusian guitar.
From the Horn to Honolulu, from the Cape to Kalamazoo,
From Wick to Wicklow, Samarkand to Spain,
You've roughed it with my kilt-bag like a comrade tried and true. . . .
Old pal! We'll never hit the trail again.
Oh I know you're cheap and vulgar, you're an instrumental crime.
In drawing-rooms you haven't got a show.
You're a musical abortion, you're the voice of grit and grime,
You're the spokesman of the lowly and the low.
You're a democratic devil, you're the darling of the mob;
You're a wheezy, breezy blasted bit of glee.
You're the headache of the high-bow, you're the horror of the snob,
but you're worth your weight in ruddy gold to me.
For you've chided me in weakness and you've cheered me in defeat;
You've been an anodyne in hours of pain;
And when the slugging jolts of life have jarred me off my feet,
You've ragged me back into the ring again.
I'll never go to Heaven, for I know I am not fit,
The golden harps of harmony to swell;
But with asbestos bellows, if the devil will permit,
I'll swing you to the fork-tailed imps of Hell.
Yes, I'll hank you, and I'll spank you,
And I'll everlasting yank you
To the cinder-swinging satellites of Hell.
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
1
NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.
A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother;
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
Tell him to send me the signs.
And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand,
and his
left
hand in my right hand,
And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and
send
these
signs.
2
Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final,
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light,
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.
Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals,
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning’s
romanza;)
All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy,
The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps,
The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he domiciles there;
Nothing for any one, but what is for him—near and far are for him, the ships in the
offing,
The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for any body.
He puts things in their attitudes;
He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love;
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations,
employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command
them.
He is the answerer:
What can be answer’d he answers—and what cannot be answer’d, he shows how
it
cannot
be answer’d.
3
A man is a summons and challenge;
(It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical
echoes?)
Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down,
seeking
to
give satisfaction;
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.
Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely,
by
day or
by night;
He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the response of the prying of hands on the
knobs.
His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he
is;
The person he favors by day, or sleeps with at night, is blessed.
4
Every existence has its idiom—everything has an idiom and tongue;
He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and
any
man
translates himself also;
One part does not counteract another part—he is the joiner—he sees how they
join.
He says indifferently and alike, How are you, friend? to the President at his
levee,
And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,
And both understand him, and know that his speech is right.
He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol,
He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal,
appearing
and new.
Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d
the
sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has follow’d it,
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.
The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none.
Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffee-house claims him,
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and
the
island
Cuban is sure;
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or
Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.
The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of
him—he strangely transmutes them,
They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
AULD chuckie Reekie’s 1 sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel burnish’d crest,
Nae joy her bonie buskit nest
Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo’es best—
Willie’s awa!
O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o’ things an unco’ sleight,
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight,
And trig an’ braw:
But now they’ll busk her like a fright,—
Willie’s awa!
The stiffest o’ them a’ he bow’d,
The bauldest o’ them a’ he cow’d;
They durst nae mair than he allow’d,
That was a law:
We’ve lost a birkie weel worth gowd;
Willie’s awa!
Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks and fools,
Frae colleges and boarding schools,
May sprout like simmer puddock-stools
In glen or shaw;
He wha could brush them down to mools—
Willie’s awa!
The brethren o’ the Commerce-chaumer
May mourn their loss wi’ doolfu’ clamour;
He was a dictionar and grammar
Among them a’;
I fear they’ll now mak mony a stammer;
Willie’s awa!
Nae mair we see his levee door
Philosophers and poets pour,
And toothy critics by the score,
In bloody raw!
The adjutant o’ a’ the core—
Willie’s awa!
Now worthy Gregory’s Latin face,
Tytler’s and Greenfield’s modest grace;
Mackenzie, Stewart, such a brace
As Rome ne’er saw;
They a’ maun meet some ither place,
Willie’s awa!
Poor Burns ev’n Scotch Drink canna quicken,
He cheeps like some bewilder’d chicken
Scar’d frae it’s minnie and the cleckin,
By hoodie-craw;
Grieg’s gien his heart an unco kickin,
Willie’s awa!
Now ev’ry sour-mou’d girnin blellum,
And Calvin’s folk, are fit to fell him;
Ilk self-conceited critic skellum
His quill may draw;
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum—
Willie’s awa!
Up wimpling stately Tweed I’ve sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,
And Ettrick banks, now roaring red,
While tempests blaw;
But every joy and pleasure’s fled,
Willie’s awa!
May I be Slander’s common speech;
A text for Infamy to preach;
And lastly, streekit out to bleach
In winter snaw;
When I forget thee, Willie Creech,
Tho’ far awa!
May never wicked Fortune touzle him!
May never wicked men bamboozle him!
Until a pow as auld’s Methusalem
He canty claw!
Then to the blessed new Jerusalem,
Fleet wing awa!
Note 1. Edinburgh. [back]
|
Written by
Friedrich von Schiller |
Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's tale of sorrow,
And, in comparing, comfort borrow!
What! dost thou think thyself undone,
Because thy rights are shared with one!
O, happy man--be more resigned,
My wife belongs to all mankind!
My wife--she's found abroad--at home;
But cross the Alps and she's at Rome;
Sail to the Baltic--there you'll find her;
Lounge on the Boulevards--kind and kinder:
In short, you've only just to drop
Where'er they sell the last new tale,
And, bound and lettered in the shop,
You'll find my lady up for sale!
She must her fair proportions render
To all whose praise can glory lend her;--
Within the coach, on board the boat,
Let every pedant "take a note;"
Endure, for public approbation,
Each critic's "close investigation,"
And brave--nay, court it as a flattery--
Each spectacled Philistine's battery.
Just as it suits some scurvy carcase
In which she hails an Aristarchus,
Ready to fly with kindred souls,
O'er blooming flowers or burning coals,
To fame or shame, to shrine or gallows,
Let him but lead--sublimely callous!
A Leipsic man--(confound the wretch!)
Has made her topographic sketch,
A kind of map, as of a town,
Each point minutely dotted down;
Scarce to myself I dare to hint
What this d----d fellow wants to print!
Thy wife--howe'er she slight the vows--
Respects, at least, the name of spouse;
But mine to regions far too high
For that terrestrial name is carried;
My wife's "The famous Ninon!"--I
"The gentleman that Ninon married!"
It galls you that you scarce are able
To stake a florin at the table--
Confront the pit, or join the walk,
But straight all tongues begin to talk!
O that such luck could me befall,
Just to be talked about at all!
Behold me dwindling in my nook,
Edged at her left,--and not a look!
A sort of rushlight of a life,
Put out by that great orb--my wife!
Scarce is the morning gray--before
Postman and porter crowd the door;
No premier has so dear a levee--
She finds the mail-bag half its trade;
My God--the parcels are so heavy!
And not a parcel carriage-paid!
But then--the truth must be confessed--
They're all so charmingly addressed:
Whate'er they cost, they well requite her--
"To Madame Blank, the famous writer!"
Poor thing, she sleeps so soft! and yet
'Twere worth my life to spare her slumber;
"Madame--from Jena--the Gazette--
The Berlin Journal--the last number!"
Sudden she wakes; those eyes of blue
(Sweet eyes!) fall straight--on the Review!
I by her side--all undetected,
While those cursed columns are inspected;
Loud squall the children overhead,
Still she reads on, till all is read:
At last she lays that darling by,
And asks--"What makes the baby cry?"
Already now the toilet's care
Claims from her couch the restless fair;
The toilet's care!--the glass has won
Just half a glance, and all is done!
A snappish--pettish word or so
Warns the poor maid 'tis time to go:--
Not at her toilet wait the Graces
Uncombed Erynnys takes their places;
So great a mind expands its scope
Far from the mean details of--soap!
Now roll the coach-wheels to the muster--
Now round my muse her votaries cluster;
Spruce Abbe Millefleurs--Baron Herman--
The English Lord, who don't know German,--
But all uncommonly well read
From matchless A to deathless Z!
Sneaks in the corner, shy and small,
A thing which men the husband call!
While every fop with flattery fires her,
Swears with what passion he admires her.--
"'Passion!' 'admire!' and still you're dumb?"
Lord bless your soul, the worst's to come:--
I'm forced to bow, as I'm a sinner,--
And hope--the rogue will stay to dinner!
But oh, at dinner!--there's the sting;
I see my cellar on the wing!
You know if Burgundy is dear?--
Mine once emerged three times a year;--
And now to wash these learned throttles,
In dozens disappear the bottles;
They well must drink who well do eat
(I've sunk a capital on meat).
Her immortality, I fear, a
Death-blow will prove to my Madeira;
It has given, alas! a mortal shock
To that old friend--my Steinberg hock!
If Faust had really any hand
In printing, I can understand
The fate which legends more than hint;--
The devil take all hands that print!
And what my thanks for all?--a pout--
Sour looks--deep sighs; but what about?
About! O, that I well divine--
That such a pearl should fall to swine--
That such a literary ruby
Should grace the finger of a booby!
Spring comes;--behold, sweet mead and lea
Nature's green splendor tapestries o'er;
Fresh blooms the flower, and buds the tree;
Larks sing--the woodland wakes once more.
The woodland wakes--but not for her!
From Nature's self the charm has flown;
No more the Spring of earth can stir
The fond remembrance of our own!
The sweetest bird upon the bough
Has not one note of music now;
And, oh! how dull the grove's soft shade,
Where once--(as lovers then)--we strayed!
The nightingales have got no learning--
Dull creatures--how can they inspire her?
The lilies are so undiscerning,
They never say--"how they admire her!"
In all this jubilee of being,
Some subject for a point she's seeing--
Some epigram--(to be impartial,
Well turned)--there may be worse in Martial!
But, hark! the goddess stoops to reason:--
"The country now is quite in season,
I'll go!"--"What! to our country seat?"
"No!--Travelling will be such a treat;
Pyrmont's extremely full, I hear;
But Carlsbad's quite the rage this year!"
Oh yes, she loves the rural Graces;
Nature is gay--in watering-places!
Those pleasant spas--our reigning passion--
Where learned Dons meet folks of fashion;
Where--each with each illustrious soul
Familiar as in Charon's boat,
All sorts of fame sit cheek-by-jowl,
Pearls in that string--the table d'hote!
Where dames whom man has injured--fly,
To heal their wounds or to efface, them;
While others, with the waters, try
A course of flirting,--just to brace them!
Well, there (O man, how light thy woes
Compared with mine--thou need'st must see!)
My wife, undaunted, greatly goes--
And leaves the orphans (seven!!!) to me!
O, wherefore art thou flown so soon,
Thou first fair year--Love's honeymoon!
All, dream too exquisite for life!
Home's goddess--in the name of wife!
Reared by each grace--yet but to be
Man's household Anadyomene!
With mind from which the sunbeams fall,
Rejoice while pervading all;
Frank in the temper pleased to please--
Soft in the feeling waked with ease.
So broke, as native of the skies,
The heart-enthraller on my eyes;
So saw I, like a morn of May,
The playmate given to glad my way;
With eyes that more than lips bespoke,
Eyes whence--sweet words--"I love thee!" broke!
So--Ah, what transports then were mine!
I led the bride before the shrine!
And saw the future years revealed,
Glassed on my hope--one blooming field!
More wide, and widening more, were given
The angel-gates disclosing heaven;
Round us the lovely, mirthful troop
Of children came--yet still to me
The loveliest--merriest of the group
The happy mother seemed to be!
Mine, by the bonds that bind us more
Than all the oaths the priest before;
Mine, by the concord of content,
When heart with heart is music-blent;
When, as sweet sounds in unison,
Two lives harmonious melt in one!
When--sudden (O the villain!)--came
Upon the scene a mind profound!--
A bel esprit, who whispered "Fame,"
And shook my card-house to the ground.
What have I now instead of all
The Eden lost of hearth and hall?
What comforts for the heaven bereft?
What of the younger angel's left?
A sort of intellectual mule,
Man's stubborn mind in woman's shape,
Too hard to love, too frail to rule--
A sage engrafted on an ape!
To what she calls the realm of mind,
She leaves that throne, her sex, to crawl,
The cestus and the charm resigned--
A public gaping-show to all!
She blots from beauty's golden book
A name 'mid nature's choicest few,
To gain the glory of a nook
In Doctor Dunderhead's Review.
|
Written by
Robert Lowell |
Gone now the baby's nurse,
a lioness who ruled the roost
and made the Mother cry.
She used to tie
gobbets of porkrind to bowknots of gauze—
three months they hung like soggy toast
on our eight foot magnolia tree,
and helped the English sparrows
weather a Boston winter.
Three months, three months!
Is Richard now himself again?
Dimpled with exaltation,
my daughter holds her levee in the tub.
Our noses rub,
each of us pats a stringy lock of hair—
they tell me nothing's gone.
Though I am forty-one,
not fourty now, the time I put away
was child's play. After thirteen weeks
my child still dabs her cheeks
to start me shaving. When
we dress her in her sky-blue corduroy,
she changes to a boy,
and floats my shaving brush
and washcloth in the flush...
Dearest I cannot loiter here
in lather like a polar bear.
Recuperating, I neither spin nor toil.
Three stories down below,
a choreman tends our coffin length of soil,
and seven horizontal tulips blow.
Just twelve months ago,
these flowers were pedigreed
imported Dutchmen, now no one need
distunguish them from weed.
Bushed by the late spring snow,
they cannot meet
another year's snowballing enervation.
I keep no rank nor station.
Cured, I am frizzled, stale and small."
|
Written by
James Henry Leigh Hunt |
Reader! what soul that laoves a verse can see
The spring return, nor glow like you and me?
Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill,
Nor long to utter his melodious will?
This more than ever leaps into the veins,
When spring has been delay'd by winds and rains,
And coming with a burst, comes like a show,
Blue all above, and basking green below,
And all the people culling the sweet prime:
Then issues forth the bee to clutch the thyme,
And the bee poet rushes into rhyme.
For lo! no sooner has the cold withdrawn,
Than the bright elm is tufted on the lawn;
The merry sap has run up in the bowers,
And bursts the windows of the buds in flowers;
With song the bosoms of the birds run o'er,
The cuckoo calls, the swallow's at the door,
And apple-tree at noon with bees alive
Burn with the golden chorus of the hive.
Now all these sweets, these sounds, this vernal blaze,
Is but one joy, express'd a thousand ways:
And honey from the flowers and song from birds
Are from the poet's pen his oeverflowing words.
Ah friends! methinks it were a pleasant sphere,
If, like the trees, we blossom'd every year;
If locks grew thick again, and rosy dyes
Return'd in cheeks, and raciness in eyes,
And all around us, vital to the tips,
The human orchard laugh'd with cherry lips!
Lord! what a burst of merriment and play,
Fair dames, were that! and what a first of May!
So natural is the wish, that bards gone by
Have left it, all, in some immortal sigh!
And yet the winter months were not so well:
Who would like changing, as the seasons fell?
Fade every year, and stare, midst ghastly friends,
With falling hairs, and stuck-out fingers' ends?
Besides, this tale of youth that comes again
Is no more true of apple-trees than men.
The Swedish sage, the Newton of the flow'rs,
Who first found out those worlds of paramours,
Tells us, that every blossom that we see
Boasts in its walls a separate family;
So that a tree is but a sort of stand
That holds those afilial fairies in its hand;
Just as Swift's giant might have held a bevy
Of Lilliputian ladies, or a levee.
It is not her that blooms: it is his race,
Who honour his old arms, and hide his rugged face.
Ye wits and bards, then, pray discern your duty,
And learn the lastingness of human beauty.
Your finest fruit to some two months may reach:
I've known a cheek at forth like a peach.
But see! the weather calls me. Here's a bee
Comes bounding in my room imperiously,
And talking to himself, hastily burns
About mine ear, and so in heat returns.
O little brethren of the fervid soul,
Kissers of flowers, lords of the golden bowl,
I follow to your fields and tusted brooks:
Winter's the time to which the poet looks
For hiving his sweet thoughts, and making honied books.
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