142 TO THE CUCKOO. TO THE CUCKOO. O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard, O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, While I am lying on the grass, I hear thee babbling to the vale And unto me thou bring'st a tale Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery. The same whom in my school-boy days Which made me look a thousand ways To seek thee did I often rove TO A WATERFOWL. And I can listen to thee yet; O blessed bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial, fairy place, That is fit home for thee! W. Wordsworth. TO A WATERFOWL. WHITHER, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink There is a Power whose care Lone wandering, but not lost. 143 144 TO A WATERFOWL. All day thy wings have fanned At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere; And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright. W. C. Bryant. THE EAGLE. 145 THE EAGLE. HE clasps the crag with crooked hands; The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; A. Tennyson. ITYLUS. SWALLOW, my sister, O sister swallow, What wilt thou do when the summer is shed? O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow, Shall not the grief of the old time follow? Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow, I, the nightingale, all spring through, Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow, Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber, For where thou fliest I shall not follow, Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow, O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow, My heart in me is a molten ember, And over my head the waves have met. But thou would'st tarry or I would follow, Couldst thou remember and I forget. |