132

THE DAFFODILS.

THE DAFFODILS.

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 the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

W. Wordsworth.

SEA MEWS IN WINTER-TIME.

133

SEA MEWS IN WINTER-TIME.

I WALKED beside a dark grey sea,
And said, "O world, how cold thou art!
Thou poor
white world, I pity thee,

For joy and warmth from thee depart.

"Yon rising wind licks off the snow,

Winds on the crag each other chase,
In little powdery whirls they blow
The misty fragments down its face.

"The sea is cold, and dark its rim,
Winter sits cowering on the wold,
And I beside this watery brim
Am also lonely, also cold."

I spoke, and drew toward a rock

Where many mews made twittering sweet; Their wings upreared, the clustering flock Did pat the sea-grass with their feet.

A rock but half submerged, the sea
Ran up and washed it while they fed;
Their fond and foolish ecstasy

A wondering in my fancy bred.

Joy companied with every cry,

Joy in their food, in that keen wind, That heaving sea, that shaded sky,

And in themselves, and in their kind.

134

SEA MEWS IN WINTER-TIME.

The phantoms of the deep at play!
What idlesse graced the twittering things;
Luxurious paddlings in the spray,

And delicate lifting up of wings.

Then all at once a flight, and fast

The lovely crowd flew out to sea;
If mine own life had been recast,

Earth had not looked more changed to me.

"Where is the cold? Yon clouded skies
Have only dropt their curtains low
To shade the old mother where she lies
Sleeping a little, neath the snow.

"The cold is not in crag, nor scar,
Not in the snows that lap the lea,
Not in yon wings that beat afar,
Delighting, on the crested sea;

"No, nor in yon exultant wind

That shakes the oak and bends the pine,
Look near, look in, and thou shalt find
No sense of cold, fond fool, but thine!"

With that I felt the gloom depart,

And thoughts within me did unfold, Whose sunshine warmed me to the heart

I walked in joy, and was not cold.

F. Ingelow.

TO A SKYLARK.

135

TO A SKYLARK.

HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

136

TO A SKYLARK.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'd

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.