VII. Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base O'er lake and stream, mountain and flowery mead, And took no note of the hour while thence they gazed, And frequent sharer of their calm delight POEMS OF THE FANCY. To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! that love-prompted strain, ("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing. All independent of the leafy spring. How would it please old ocean to partake, With sailors longing for a breeze in vain, The harmony thy notes most gladly make Where earth resembles most his own domain ! Urania's self might welcome with pleased ear These matins mounting towards her native sphere. Chanter by heaven attracted, whom no bars To day-light known deter from that pursuit, 'Tis well that some sage instinct, when the stars Come forth at evening, keeps thee still and mute; For not an eyelid could to sleep incline Wert thou among them, singing as they shine! Whole summer fields are thine by right; In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Nor carest if thou be set at naught: We meet thee like a pleasant thought, Be Violets in their secret mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose; Thou livest with less ambitious aim, If to a rock from rains he fly, Near the green holly, A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, Have I derived from thy sweet power Some apprehension; Come steady love; some brief delight; Some memory that had taken flight; Some chime of fancy wrong or right; Or stray invention. If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to Thee should turn, The homely sympathy that heeds When, smitten by the morning ray, And when, at dusk, by dews opprest And all day long I number yet, An instinct call it, a blind sense; A happy, genial influence, Coming one knows not how, nor whence, Nor whither going. 1 Child of the year! that round dost run As morning Leveret, Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain; A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill I sat within an undergrove Of tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen. THE GREEN LINNET. 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 *See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower |