TO EMS J BOUT "BIRDS 
 
 From the ?Jh'(iddie ^yiges lu the 'Vresent 'Day 
 
 CHOSEN AND EDITED RY 
 
 H. J. MASSINGHAM 
 
 I 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST . , 
 
 OF 
 
 STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 
 1943 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR1195.B5M39 
 
 Poems about birds, from the middle ages 
 
 3 1924 013 292 218 
 
% Cornell University 
 M Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013292218 
 
POEMS ABOUT BIRDS 
 
Come tell us, O tell us. 
 
 Thou strange mortality I ■» 
 
 What's thy thought of us. Dear ? — 
 
 Here's out thought of thee. 
 
 Francis Thompson. 
 
 " Music ... an art common to men and birds." 
 
 Anatole France. 
 
 ' True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
POEMS ABOUT BIRDS 
 
 From the Middle Ages to the 'Present 
 ■LJCiy Chosen and Edited, with an Introduction 
 and Notes by H. J. MASSINGHAM 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 J. C. SQUIRE 
 
 E. p. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 68i FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 
 (Printed in Great Britain) 
 
 - "'^' iUklU (I 
 
 If U I V 1 l( [; 1 1 Y 
 I l.:iv/,l;V ■ 
 
To S. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In England the birds are all around us. As I write 
 I am in a room in Outer London, with miles of suburbs 
 still between me and the open country. I have just 
 stood, first at the back window, over the small garden 
 with its acacia, its two -pear- trees, its little grove of 
 lilacs and flowering currants, and then at the window 
 in/ront which overlooks a road, a waterside garden, and 
 the osiers of Chiswick Eyot and the Thames, with the 
 houses of Barnes beyond. Everywhere there are birds, 
 perched and flying : starlings crossing the upper air, 
 sparrows troubling the holly, a thrush intermittently 
 singing behind the upper veils of the ash-tree, chaffinches 
 tinkling somewhere unseen. So it is all the year. In 
 mere point of frequency the birds are far more commonly 
 seen here than anything else in animate nature, except- 
 ing man : for us they are, to all intents and purposes, 
 animate nature. There are insects, many if one looks 
 for them, few if one does not : a pair of chasing white 
 butterflies, a ladybird on a rose-leaf, a little bronzed 
 beetle now and then, and in their season caterpillars 
 of the currant and vapourer moths. Animals, beyond 
 the domestic, are not here at all, Twice a year, per- 
 haps, I may hear a plop in the water and catch sight 
 of a ripple and the head of a water-rat hurrying to 
 the overhung bank of the island. But the birds are 
 always present, numerous and various, even here. 
 The twittering of the small birds is perpetual ; every 
 morning's dew is printed with the claws of blackbirds 
 and thrushes, a robin nested this year behind the thick 
 streamers of the Virginia creeper orTthe back wall, 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 tits ceaselessly hop about on the high twigs of the fruit- 
 trees. Tear by year a -pair of crows have built in 
 a tall poplar by the river. They came back this 
 year to find it pollarded, circled in bewilderment for 
 a morning around the space where the vanished tree -top 
 had been, and then resigned themselves to a new home. 
 Wild ducks swim on the smooth water, gulls on the 
 stormy. There are swans which sail proudly as 
 Spenser's. Every year a pair tries to raise a family 
 on the Eyot. The eggs are usually addled by a spring 
 tide. This year a benevolent and bold neighbour 
 moved their nest afoot higher when they were off it ; 
 and now there is a family of cygnets, learning to swim, 
 struggling against the tide and climbing between their 
 mother'' s wings when they are exhausted, she moving 
 steadily on, a solicitous but a severe parent. On 
 summer evenings, as we pass the Eyot in a boat, a 
 heron often will rise out of the reeds, looking, if it is 
 getting dark, like a tattered black fiag, and will flap 
 away up-river, disappearing into the twilight. Then, 
 as the year wears on, the migrants rest on the osiers in 
 thousands, and especially armies of swallows. They 
 will fly about the sky, very high up, like an immense 
 swarm of gnats, and then, in long streamers, all drop 
 suddenly down. There they perch, not one visible, 
 but the whole reed-bed alive with them ; a small 
 stone thrown into the midst will send a great cloud of 
 them fluttering and chirping up into the dim air. 
 
 So it is all over England. There are countries 
 where most of the birds migrate, and a winter's day 
 may pass without a bird being seen. There are 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 countries where small birds are Jew, because they are 
 no sooner seen than they are shot for food. There are 
 others rich in gorgeous screeching birds, but poor in 
 the homelier singers. In England the birds and their 
 music are everywhere. It is natural therefore that 
 our literature should be full of them, and especially 
 our -poetry. The commonest objects must be, to use 
 for the moment no stronger word, ''^mentioned" more 
 often than the others. They are a noticeable part 
 of almost every natural background ; whatever mood 
 or action we may be experiencing, if it he " set " out 
 of doors, birds will be present, birds will probably be 
 singing, and they will consequently be associated with our 
 theme, as the other common elements of nature will be, 
 sun and clouds, trees and grasses. By the same token 
 the commonest birds, the thrushes and blackbirds, rooks, 
 peewits, robins, and sparrows, will "occur"''' in literature 
 more frequently than rails or hoopoes. Unless a man 
 deliberately go in search of these last he will seldom 
 if ever see them ; the others are daily, as it were, thrust 
 upon us, and no desire for a change of imagery wM 
 alter the fact. 
 
 It will be found that the poets represented in Mr. 
 Massingham' s delightful and representative anthology 
 have seen their birds in various aspects and written 
 of them in manners of an analogous variety. Thefe 
 are those who, describing nature with a calm and 
 comprehensive affection, have noted the characters 
 and habits of birds as they have noted those of beasts, 
 the transformations of the weather, and the passage 
 of the seasons. Chaucer and Clare, Thompson and 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 Cozvper and Crabbe had an eye for their individualities 
 and knew their ways of life. Yet mere existence 
 in nature, the mere being a bird, would not in itself 
 have led to the large literature which has been written 
 about birds. Were there no other birds than the vulture 
 and the kite, though these might have sat on every 
 roof, bird-literature would not have been what it is, 
 though vultures and kites would necessarily be fre- 
 quently spoken of. We find in most of the tribe 
 of birds — and the philosophers may discuss why — 
 beauties which appeal to our eesthetic sense. These 
 beauties they share with other living things. The 
 appealing softness and daintiness which Burns found 
 in the linnet is precisely what he found in the field- 
 mouse : his poems to the two are twins. The gorgeous 
 colours of Pope^s pheasant and Milton's peacock are 
 also worn by certain snakes and baboons ; the gazelle 
 is gentle and shy, the lion majestic, the greyhound and 
 the dragon-fly are swift. The physical beauties of the 
 birds and the lovely qualities of their movements are 
 not peculiar to them ; but they are all around us and 
 they possess them, and particularly an appearance 
 of softness and grace, more plentifully than any other 
 creatures. All poets must write of the birds who write 
 of " Nature," and all must be moved by the beauty 
 of many of them, their colours, their easy flight, their 
 lightness and softness, the grace and whimsicality of 
 their ways. Tet more than that is found in them. 
 Above most living things man has found them, in certain 
 regards, emblematic of his own state. In the first 
 of all the poems in this book, that moving anecdote 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 of the Northumbrian court which, in frose, has been 
 the first literature to move the hearts oj many children 
 in the way that poetry moves hearts, the passage of 
 a sparrow is seen to symbolize man's tranzience, his 
 journey from unknown to unknown. To watch birds 
 passing, and especially a solitary bird, is to feel a 
 vague emotion springing from a likeness to something in 
 our own lives, and the words that result will depend upon 
 the philosophy, permanent or not, of the man who utters 
 them. From Sydney Dobell, watching the swallow 
 flying overseas, came the cry, " Swallow, I also seek 
 and do not find" ; in Bryant, with a firmer faith, 
 a similar sight led to the reflection 
 
 " There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that ■pathless coast." 
 
 Man flnds in the flight of a wild bird an emblem of 
 his mortality ; and in the caged bird he has most 
 often found an emblem of his imprisonment by evil 
 circumstance, the vanity of beating the bars, the sad 
 alternative of a living death, the other sad alternative 
 of a dull resignation, the rare resort of a brave and 
 joyous triumph over captivity. Their lives, their 
 wings, their familiar experience, under our eyes, of 
 our own joys and adversities, winter and summer, 
 plenty and penury, sun and rain, mating, parenthood 
 and death, give them an intimate relation with us. 
 To Blake they seemed almost a more innocent kind 
 of human spirits, by virtue of the image of the domestic 
 and thankful lives they lead, the swiftness and vivacity 
 of their joys. But to most poets and to mankind at 
 large they are chiefly and most often brought near to 
 
lo PREFACE 
 
 ourselves not by their fhysical loveliness, their breasts 
 and wings, nor by their social existence, but by a 
 faculty and a love which they share with us alone. 
 
 The mast intimate link between birds and poets, 
 between birds and men, the chief cause of the volumin- 
 ousness of this anthology, is to he found in the second 
 of the quotations with which Mr. Massingham graces 
 his flyleaf : " Music . . . an art common to men and 
 birds." Nature is full of voices : but whatever predilec- 
 tion the modernist musician may have in favour of the 
 nocturnal cat, it will scarcely be disputed by anyone 
 that the birds as musicians are in a class apart, for 
 number, ubiquity, sweetness, and range. With every 
 dawn " the innumerable choir of day " breaks into 
 song. We, in England, are so accustomed to the 
 birds that it is by their absence that we are best able 
 to define a profound silence. 
 
 " The sedge is withered by the lake. 
 And no birds sing " ; 
 
 the phrase of itself produces an atmosphere to us strange 
 and abnormal, and in one form or another it has been 
 used a thousand times. Everywhere, at all seasons, they 
 are around us ; the down is very lonely and the marsh 
 very desolate which harbours no bird that sings, and in 
 our habitual fields and lanes and gardens the twittering 
 is so continuous that we notice it most when it stops, 
 when a hush falls with excessive heat or the approach 
 of thunder. They are always ready for us, whatever 
 our mood ; and whatever our mood, it is not unnatural 
 that we should link it to their music, finding it either 
 a vicarious song expressing our mood, or, more bitterly. 
 
PREFACE u 
 
 an alien rejoicing indifferent to it. The latter 
 experience is much the rarer ; where the music of 
 the birds is referred to in the present collection there 
 is seldom the note of " How can you sing, you bonny 
 bird ? " The birds are sympathetic ; if they carry 
 messages their messages are like that of Milton'' s 
 nightingale, " Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart 
 dost flip' ; they are a choir in the cathedral of heaven 
 expressing their joy and {as man cannot but feel) 
 gratitude on his behalf as well as their own, for the 
 perennial blessings of life, for mere living itself, for 
 love, for spring and the end of winter, for morning 
 and the retreat of night. The mystic in exaltation 
 will at times hear the song of worship from all animate 
 and all inanimate nature. The Psalmist knew that 
 truth ; it is magnificently recorded in the Song to 
 David and in Mr. Hodgson's Song of Honour.; 
 it is characteristically phrased in Faughan's " Tet 
 stones are deep in admiration'' and " hills and valleys 
 into singing break " ; it is stated with charming 
 simplicity in the seventeenth-cent-wry Hymn of John 
 Hall : 
 
 " Tet do the laTiy snails -no less 
 The greatness of our Lord confess. 
 Their ruder voices do as well, 
 Tes, and the speechless fishes tell." 
 
 Yet Hall has to remind himself of this truth. He is 
 rationalizing from the memory of a rare experience, 
 and it is from the obvious, the undeniable, the every- 
 day " happy choristers of air " that he has to start, 
 those whose song the physical ear never allows us to 
 
12 PREFACE 
 
 jorget. It is in David ap GwylyvCs beautiful ■poem 
 that their song is compared to a Mass ; and the thought 
 recurs through all our poetry. In the far trills of the 
 lark, in the throbbing of the thrush's throat, we see a 
 spring of joy and gratitude more pure, more certain 
 and spontaneous and courageous, than anything that 
 comes, except at rare moments, from a race looking 
 before and after, and consciously " clutching the 
 inviolable shade.'' The moments would be rarer 
 still were the birds not there for companionship and 
 example ; many of our most joyous bursts of song have 
 been directly inspired by them. 
 
 These will be found in the following pages, which 
 I now commend to the reader. It would hardly become 
 me further to praise Mr. Massingham's anthology ; 
 I hope I shan't be found to have buried it. I can only 
 add that his qualification for the work was a double 
 one, for he has, as prime mover in the recent Plumage 
 Act, done more than any other man to help to retain 
 on this earth many rare and beautiful birds which were 
 in danger of extinction at the hands of those who, as 
 Mr. Hodgson points out, cannot bear to see pretty and 
 saleable things running to waste in woods and fields. 
 
 J. C. SQUIRE. 
 
Preface ..... 
 
 5 
 
 Introduction .... 
 
 ■ IS 
 
 Text ...... 
 
 • 33 
 
 Notes 
 
 • 365 
 
 List of Authors 
 
 • 409 
 
 Index of First Lines 
 
 • 4" 
 
 13 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Some words are necessary to explain the scope and method 
 of this collection. I do not profess to be one of those 
 compilers who apologise for their wares on the ground that 
 there are too many of them. Why add anotheij then, is 
 the answer for a gift. Neither do I share the minority 
 prejudice against anthologies as such. They may be good 
 or bad, useful or worthless, but to condemn them for being 
 what they are seems to me a form of literary snobbery. 
 Apart from the question of relative merit — and to make a 
 really good anthology is a much harder job than the writing 
 of many " original " works — I can see only one serious 
 objection to them. They may influence their readers 
 against going to the originals from which the selections are 
 taken and so encourage a light-minded and surface culture. 
 But the blame is surely the readers',, for the proper antho- 
 logy should open rather than, shut the door to the strong- 
 room of the bank of literature by exhibiting some handfuls 
 of its best money. Granted all the shoddy,, a competent 
 anthology seems to me of real valiue. in inspiring andi 
 diifusing a taste for and knowledge- o£ literature, which 
 education lacks: and: needs more than anything else. 
 
 The object o£ this one is alsoi to foster what I belifive 
 is a native and growing appreciation of natural life and 
 beauty, which will in time rout the huge vested interests 
 in destruction of life for frivolous purposes, from the egger 
 to the milliner. Not the least of my difficulties has been to 
 keep the balance between the two demands. But as bad 
 poetry means bad thinking, and bad thinking bad feeling, 
 I have given priority to the first and omitted the incredible 
 amount of inferior verse which takes birds as its subject 
 matter. My publisher never suggested a wiser thing 
 than that I should keep the book within the limits of two 
 
 15 
 
i6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 hundred poems, and I do not believe that beyond its 
 frontier there exist more than a very few tolerable ones 
 in the whole language. If so, I have missed them. I 
 do not of course pretend that all of these collected here 
 are of first-class quality, but I do claim that they take 
 poetic honours of some kind, so far as I am a judge of 
 them. I have also tried to keep an eye to their being 
 as representative as possible of the several ages in 
 which they were written, and so of the different stages the 
 poetic mind has passed in its emotional response to nature. 
 The reasons for my chronological arrangement of the text 
 I propose to give later, as they embrace an interesting 
 problem. The poems are grouped into four divisions, the 
 first containing those written between the Middle Ages and 
 the Restoration ; the second during the eighteenth century ; 
 the third (beginning with Blake) representing dead writers 
 beyond it; and the fourth living writers. The text, I think, 
 shows that these divisions are not arbitrary. So far as one 
 can fix their period, the few anonymous poems are placed 
 at the end of the divisions to which they belong ; and within 
 these categories I have ranged the poets, not alphabetically, 
 which would have meant a fourfold repetition, but in the 
 sequence of their dates. Living writers are not dated. 
 
 There would certainly have been no excuse for this par- 
 ticular miscellany, had it been anticipated by a similar work. 
 The only two other books I have been able to find which 
 have collected poetic material about birds are Noel Paton's 
 The Birds and the Bards (i 894) and the American natura- 
 list Phil. Robinson's The Poet's Birds (1883). They are 
 constructed on an entirely different plan from this volume. 
 Neither of them are anthologies at all as I conceive the 
 term. The former gathers an enormous number of extracts 
 in verse relating to birds, many of them of four lines each 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 or fewer and from a limited number of poets. It is, in fact, 
 a dictionary of reference and serves an excellent purpose 
 thus. The latter consists of similar extracts mostly of 
 descriptive verse, arranged under separate species of birds 
 with prose commentaries attached ; and is a compound 
 of essays and quotation or commonplace book. It is 
 natural, therefore, that only a score or so of the poems in 
 this volume should also appear in theirs, because I have 
 pursued one method — that of the anthology — and they 
 two others. The scraps, gobbets, and driblets proper to 
 their types of publication would be fatal to this one. That, 
 however, does not appear to me an argument against the 
 use of extracts altogether. So ascetic an extreme, at any 
 rate, is not for me, and I do not see how an anthology of 
 broad range on a particular subject can possibly be com- 
 piled without them. But I have been careful to give 
 whole poems wherever their nature admits it, and to try 
 to avoid that effect of scrappiness and poem-chopping 
 suitable to a calendar but not an anthology. The notes 
 indicate when and where portions of a poem are used. 
 
 A few other points need to be noted. I have been to 
 standard modern or reliable old editions for the text, whose 
 spelling I have modernised, except in the few cases 
 (Chaucer's, for instance) where the ancient spelling affects 
 the metrical stress and movement of the verse. Scottish 
 and dialect spelling is retained. My principle of selection 
 has been as free and broad as I could make it within wel- 
 come limits, but I have restrained myself without difficulty 
 from drawing upon the dicky-bird element in verse. The 
 question, " What is a bird-poem ? " often bothered me, 
 and I have been very sparing in picking out poems like 
 Poe's " Raven," Darley's " Phoenix," Cowper's " Nightin- 
 gale and Glow-worm," where the answer is too ambiguous. 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A very few samples of the f abular type do no harm, if they 
 are good. A poem like Scott's " Proud Maisie is in the 
 Wood " seems to me to be quite as definitely not a bird- 
 poem as " The Trossachs " is one, but with the best will 
 in the world I am sure to have made mistakes both of 
 exclusion and admission in this dubious region. At a 
 rough guess, eighty or so poems out of two hundred are 
 quite new to the modern anthology, but if some readers 
 look for and fail to find any specimens from the work of 
 Quarles, R. Niccols (" The Cuckow," 1607), Allan Ramsay, 
 Montgomery (" Pelican Island "), Leyden (" Scenes of 
 Infancy "), Somervile, Bloomfield, Mackay, King, Cun- 
 ningham, Mallet (" Amyntor "), Hogg, Faber, Fenton, 
 Mrs. Hemans, Barry Cornwall, Charlotte Smith, and other 
 writers on birds,* the reason is because quite honestly I did 
 not think any of it good enough. The point I wish to make 
 is that, whatever the misfires, faultiness, and limitations of 
 my selection — and of errors in fact and theory it is no doubt 
 full enough — it has not been made without method or 
 principle. 
 
 The notes at the end of the book are of two kinds — 
 bibliographical and explanatory, and critical and general 
 The former are a necessary supplement to any well-con- 
 ducted text ; the latter, written at my own pleasure, 
 interest, and risk, can be ignored by anyone who does not 
 like or approve of them. 
 
 Poetry is essentially ideal. Imitation of nature as an 
 end and for its own sake is the death of all art. The first 
 and last law of poetry, an element which absorbs and 
 
 * See the end of the Notes for an explanation of a poem of 
 Smart's not being in the text. 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 transforms every other element upon which it works into 
 something new, is to be true to itself. 
 
 It is an axiom that evolution works by a slow integration 
 of all things, not in spite of but through their distinctness 
 and particularity, and this maxim can, I think, be applied 
 to the relations of poetry to nature and is the reason for 
 the chronological arrangement of this book. Man's percep- 
 tion of beauty in nature is vastly older than his discovery 
 of metals, older than his very speech, and the first articulate 
 word from his lispings was beauty. Coleridge neither 
 saw the landscape of the " Ancient Mariner " nor got 
 it out of a book, for Shelvocke's " Voyages " is a sunless 
 sea indeed. It was etched upon his mind by intuitive 
 memory, mysteriously quickened in all true poetic natures, 
 just as the essential form of the charging mammoth sprang 
 from the dripping walls of the sepulchral limestone grotto 
 at the will of a hand with no living model before it. 
 How richly revealing, indeed, of man's foster-childhood 
 to nature for tens of thousands of years are those poly- 
 chromatic mural frescoes of the unstoried Cro-Magnon 
 race ! The sense of beauty, of that wth power in nature 
 aU her great artists glorify, is an inheritance so fundamental 
 to us that it is in the marrow of our bones and the pigment 
 of our blood. Who knows what Coleridge (to go still 
 farther back) did not owe . to the lemurine anthropoid 
 creeping among the tree-tops and receiving through the 
 cracks of his shut mind the light capering among the 
 leaves ? Nature's beauty is an instinctive patrimony to 
 man born of nature ; and to acknowledge that gift in a 
 thousand different ways and through a hundred different 
 materials revealing the Creator in the creature, is the 
 function of art. A deepening and expanding sense of 
 beauty, the climbing of a hill only to see a mountain beyond 
 
20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 it, is part of our evolution, the most important part, and 
 every artist who creates beauty is going back to nature, 
 whether he knows it or not. 
 
 " Nature-poetry " is the explicit recognition of this 
 legacy. There are colours in the spectrum imperceptible 
 to the human eye, but visible to the super-eye. The 
 mission of the artist is to see things that do not meet the 
 eye, and his perceptions are intuitive. But what is the 
 food of the poetic imagination ? Knowledge. Love and 
 blindness often go together both in fable and in fact, but 
 it may be questioned whether knowledge is not love's truer 
 mate, and whether they do not lend to each other a power 
 lacking to either in separation, but received back in greater 
 measure through their union. God, we may say, brooded 
 over chaos in the mystical perception of love, knowledge, and 
 imagination, three in one and one in three, seeing them return 
 to him again in the goal won, the end achieved of evolution. 
 
 We * have in fact to look at nature-poetry in two ways : 
 as a work of art, a thing in itself, and relatively to the age 
 and status of discovery in which it was written. What was 
 right for the Elizabethans is wrong for us, because our 
 modern life has won new attitudes to and knowledge from 
 nature to them unknown except in uncertain gleams. It 
 is not that we find disharmonies among the Elizabethans 
 and still earlier poets, and that their expression of values 
 is wrong because it is different from ours. In the 
 seventeenth century, the mind often robs the senses ; in 
 the Renaissance proper, fancy takes, conventional liberties 
 with matter and experience, and arranges them in formal 
 patterns. Nature was a kind of Clarkson to the Eliza- 
 
 ♦ Note. — Any reader who objects to being made an accomplice 
 in these views by the use of the plural pronoun has only to substitute 
 " I " for " we." 
 
INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 bethans, and a limited type of costume was de riguetcr. We 
 should be wrong to find fault with them on that account, 
 since the convention was well and truly adapted to the 
 needs and resources of the period, and in its own place 
 evokes the full chords of beauty. The nature-poetry of 
 the Middle Ages, again, partly shows us the later method 
 in the making (in the convention of May-Day, for instance), 
 and partly something set apart and peculiar to their own 
 special and more concrete genius. Nature is delightfully 
 humanised, as religion was, and beasts and birds and saints 
 and angels and devils play a united part in the theatre of 
 human destiny. The funeral service of the birds in 
 Skelton's exquisite " Boke of Philip Sparow " is as beautiful 
 and natural as are beasts and birds acting their own lives 
 in the drama of creation. The eighteenth-century pastor- 
 alists, again, break fresh ground ; their method, or rather 
 system, is what science calls a " mutation " towards the 
 objective and descriptive treatment of nature, and in the 
 hands of Thomson and Cowper the new instrument yielded 
 its full volume of sound. But Thomson, the centre of the 
 new movement, is at the same time its worst enemy. Poetry 
 is always breaking into and out of his set numbers, just as 
 the robins hop in and out of the glass house at Kew and 
 thrill the academy of alien growths with their native warble. 
 With the nineteenth century, launched by Blake and 
 Burns, that intuitive memory, implanted by nature, seemed 
 to become self-conscious and aware of its source, and the 
 spiral of evolution took a new turn. Its first glory has as 
 good a name in the Realistic as in the Romantic Revival, 
 for a leap forward in poetic power and range of vision cor- 
 responded with a more intimate perception of natural truth. 
 Roughly, the age began to see things in and for themselves, 
 to realise an immortal aspect of beauty behind them, and to 
 
22 INTRODUCTION 
 
 gain a new reverence for life as it acquired a truer knowledge 
 of it. Poetry became both more particular and more 
 integral, and it was natural that this modern turn, with its 
 more and more sympathetic understanding of the nature 
 of things, should be shot through with portents of Dar- 
 winism, which demonstrates the growth of integration and 
 differentiation in the natural world. The bond between 
 nature and the soul of man was recognised, and Coleridge 
 defines beauty in the abstract as " the unity of the manifold, 
 the coalescence of the diverse." The age of unity in nature- 
 poetry had dawned, and it sought balances and reconcilia- 
 tions in every direction, with " truth to nature," with 
 " humanitarianism," with knowledge, and with the ,spirit 
 of nature urging its manifold forms into life. 
 
 " Truth to nature," therefore, has become very wide in 
 meaning. Professor Thomson says of the nature-poets 
 that they are " the truest because deepest biologists of us 
 all " — that is one truth, to penetrate matter and read the 
 Sibyl's mysteries. Another, surely, is some knowledge 
 by sense or intuition of the external processes of nature, 
 as a key to nature's language, a passage between it and the 
 soul of man, a treasure-house of imagery and illustration 
 and a parable of effortless expression. Many artists fight 
 shy of this knowledge as impeding their freedom. But the 
 genuine artist turns all to good, and to make bread grinds 
 all that he can gather into his mill. New knowledge is new 
 words, new colours, new thoughts, new beauties to him. 
 When Wordsworth makes an analogy like " more dreary 
 cold than a forsaken bird's nest filled with snow," he makes 
 a particular use of natural life which keeps the balance 
 between truth to nature and truth to art and explores a 
 terra nova, reached by knowledge and observation, whose 
 possibilities for poetic simile and image are incomparably 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 richer than any to be got out of fable, legend, myth, or 
 picturesque convention. When Whitman swells the song- 
 sparrow's voice of hunger and loss into a symphony, and 
 on Paumanok's shore break the waves of all human sorrow, 
 he is transcending, not violating, reality. When Francis 
 Thompson writes : 
 
 " Earth ere blossoming 
 thrills 
 With far daffodils 
 And feels her breast turn sweet 
 With the unconceivdd wHeat," 
 
 we are gainers by the twin realities of truth and beauty. 
 No true artist of the human figure fears to be choked by a 
 knowledge of anatomy. 
 
 When, therefore, the modern nature-poet makes a divi- 
 sion between natural truth, visible or invisible, and poetic 
 beauty, we are right not to be taken in by his music. 
 We accept Lyly's " What bird so sings, yet so doth 
 wail ? 'tis the ravished nightingale " ; we qualify our 
 acceptance of Arnold's " Philomela " by referring the 
 meaningless conceit to Coleridge's proper reproach to the 
 poets (" The Nightingale ") who " heave their sighs o'er 
 Philomela's pity-pleading strains " and harness nature to 
 the water-cart. " The moping owl doth to the moon 
 complain " very effectively in the blanched vales of Arcady, 
 but the modern poet who murmurs to us of " the cruel 
 lion," " the kind antelope," " the warbling sea-mew," 
 " the faithful dove," the skylark " shrilling her immortal 
 strains," etc., had better go there. In such nature-poetry 
 there is no more poetry than nature ; it is professionalism, 
 exploiting stale odds and ends to poetic copy, and the 
 product not of reality and imagination but of false senti- 
 ment. How different when Father Hopkins, who can 
 
24 INTRODUCTION 
 
 hardly be described as an expert ornithologist, writes in 
 
 " The Cuckoo " — " The whole landscape flushes on a 
 
 sudden at a sound." He knew. The objection to this 
 
 divorce from reality is threefold. It fails to adapt itself 
 
 to the material and conditions of its own age, and 
 
 poetry cannot stand out of time without using time's 
 
 tools ; it creates artificially a disunion between the 
 
 specialist feeding on pure data and the poet on pure 
 
 emotion, and it lacks the balance between the mind 
 
 and the senses, between truth to nature and truth to art 
 
 which modern nature-poetry at its best seeks as intuitively 
 
 as the real poetic dramatist seeks a balance between natural 
 
 speech and poetic diction. And how dulled to the masterly 
 
 self-expression of nature herself, its great preceptor ! 
 
 " The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery," writes 
 
 Keats in a letter to Taylor, " should like the sun come 
 
 natural to him (the poet) — shine over him and set soberly 
 
 although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of 
 
 twilight . . . and if poetry comes not as naturally as the 
 
 leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all."* 
 
 It can be fairly claimed that this little world of poems 
 
 about birds is a globe reflecting these larger movements 
 
 and currents more graciously and compactly than a more 
 
 ambitious volume could accomplish. Birds enter into 
 
 nature like stars into the sky, quickening her pulse and 
 
 revealing the graces of her spirit. Without them her blood 
 
 runs too cold for sun or central fires to warm it. They were 
 
 a sudden, bright thought of hers, run into rhyme, and ever 
 
 after have been the expression of her lyrical power, easing 
 
 • Note. — ^To treat a particular type of poetry historically and 
 in relation to the facts of nature is not, I think, to question the 
 validity of Mr. Glutton Brock's definition of art as the communication 
 of emotional values experienced by the artist. (See his profound 
 study of Hamlet. Methucn, 1922.) 
 
INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 with laughter and at the same time articulating after long 
 travail those mighty impulses of life, love, death, and 
 birth whose purposes she broods. How naturally, then, 
 do these living songs lend wings and voices to the poets, 
 reaching up to where : 
 
 " The gods embrace 
 t And stars are bom and suns : . . 
 
 . . . where life and death are one " — 
 
 and catching in the curves, eddies, circles, sweeps of music 
 and flight the tumults of the human heart. Among living 
 poets we are more conscious of this sense of identity, of a 
 passion to embrace and interpret the beauty of life through 
 its least earthly visible form than ever before ; and in Mr. 
 Hardy, Mr. Hodgson (" The Song of Honour," the greatest 
 expression of this modern spirit we have among living poets) 
 and Mr. Stephens particularly a new harmony of love, know- 
 ledge, and imaginative truth emerges. These three graces 
 have joined hands partly out of a common sense of loss, 
 for it seems impossible for the human mind to measure the 
 value and wonder of creation until it knows it to be perishing. 
 Bird-life is ebbing and the world is not what it was when 
 older poets sang it ; we are in the autumn of that former 
 bounty, and the manuscript comes into our hands with few 
 of its pages not torn, missing, or scribbled over. Of that 
 vandalism Mr. Hodgson's " To Deck a Woman " (never 
 published in book form) is the immortal witness and accuser: 
 
 " One melody, one lustre lost. 
 One loveliness of Earth at end — 
 Not Heaven deflowered of all its host 
 Were deeper wound or worse to mend. 
 
 " I saw the wood in sweet and stale. 
 The shock and slow and heavy crown. 
 The milks and wines come full and fail, 
 The glory dashed and all hung down. 
 
26 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " The taloned winds, the clash and fall. 
 The shadow of the winter cloud ; 
 I saw the wood — ^I saw it all. 
 The revelation and the shroud. 
 
 " For thee * he dragged his shambles through 
 The forests of my burning land. 
 In my insulted snows I knew 
 A labour of thy privy hand. 
 
 " And when the sedge stole back and through 
 Its beaded waters rainbow-shot. 
 And suns burned whole and bled anew, 
 I sought my birds and found them not." f 
 
 The " Song of Honour " and this funeral ode over nature's 
 dying fires yet kindle a radiant promise for the future of 
 poetry. The modern artist begins to feel the need of a 
 reconciliation between the arts and science (the raw material 
 of art), whose opposition is as much taken for granted in 
 this generation as was that between science and religion 
 in the sixties of last century. He sees the limitations of 
 interpreting nature without knowledge, whether intuitive 
 or acquired, of her processes, methods, ends, or workman- 
 ship, equally with those of the man of science " anatomis- 
 ing" her without the emotional insight which relates the 
 part to a harmonious whole. In the divine sympathy 
 with and understanding of the nature of things, poetry, 
 not science, shall have the last word. 
 
 I have tended perhaps to explain and lay out the contents 
 of this book on the analogy of an evolutionary diagram. 
 The parallel is to some extent a just one. Each age comes 
 to its perfect flower in certain poems, dies right out and 
 leaves no successors. But the main phylum of progress, 
 
 ' Thee — ^viz. women. 
 
 f The author's anxiety to retouch and recast this remarkable 
 poem before its appearance in book form has prevented me from 
 including it here. 
 
INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 throwing out these branches on its course, runs steadily 
 
 onwards, and it is possible to pick out those poems which, 
 
 written at widely separated intervals of time, yet own a 
 
 roughly common kinship in idea and feeling. They are 
 
 prophetic, as poetry so often is, of the modern attitude to 
 
 nature. In the fourteenth century, there are David ap 
 
 Gwylym's rapturous " Mass of the Birds " and Chaucer's 
 
 constant touches of familiarity and quicksightedness, 
 
 slipping free of convention ; at the Renaissance, Drum- 
 
 mond's " Sweet Bird, that sing'st away the early hours " 
 
 looks beyond the bowers of charmed seclusion. In the 
 
 seventeenth century, Vaughan's " The Bird," Hall's " A 
 
 Pastoral Hymn," Cary's " Hymn," and Marvell's seeing 
 
 lines from " Appleton House " : 
 
 " And through the hazels thick espy 
 The hatching throstle's shining eye," 
 
 view nature closely and with that almost startled gaze of 
 
 discovery and recognition which is so touching. Pope, 
 
 Cowper, Thomson, and Burns in the eighteenth century 
 
 swung away from the anthropocentric obsession and gave 
 
 " Sensibility " a truer grace than its professional antics 
 
 promised, while the genius of Burns enters into the life 
 
 of all wild things so feelingly that his numbers thrill 
 
 with bird-voices for the first time in our literature. And 
 
 finally, Blake sings like Francis Thompson's " Mistress of 
 
 Vision," and in four lines utters the parable of the whole 
 
 of this miscellany : 
 
 " He who bends to himself a joy 
 Doth the wingdd life destroy; 
 But he who catches the joy as it flies 
 Lives in Eternity's sunrise." 
 
 In bulk, my obligations for the use of copyright poems 
 are not nearly so back-breaking as I not only could have 
 
28 INTRODUCTION 
 
 wished, but as I took a deal of trouble to burden myself 
 with. The seeker, for instance, will not find Mr. De la Mare 
 represented here, whose often " wonderful, wonderful 
 voices " possess the very cadence of the not human, not 
 angelic (but something less and more than both) song of 
 the wild bird. To play the stern naturalist is no com- 
 pensation for the loss of them. From " The Linnet " 
 (" Motley," 191 8), he might argue that the sacrifice of truth 
 to rhyme (the song is " hers " — to rhyme with " furze ") 
 took a leaf out of the poet's laurels. Could I have secured 
 a song which does for this bird what Burns (with equal 
 inaccuracy) does for the woodlark, I should have been 
 thankful, regardless of sex-problems, both for the linnet- 
 poet and the poet's linnet. The absence of Edward Thomas 
 makes another hole in the book. His poems on birds are 
 rather individual jottings from an intimate diary of the 
 mind, touching gracious and unsuspected objects of poetic 
 experience, than strict bird-poems. But through them and 
 Thomas's faint, fragrant indeterminacy of feeling, we gain 
 a new insight into the shy, kindred qualities of bird-life. 
 Meredith's " The Lark Ascending " ; Mr. Masefield's mascu- 
 line " Sea Change " from " Salt-Water Ballads " ; five of 
 Dr. Bridges', particularly his matchless " Nightingales " ; 
 one of Father Hopkins's, which he himself calls " the best 
 thing I ever wrote " ; Dowden's charming " In the 
 Cathedral Close " ; Watts-Dunton's " Mother Carey's 
 Chicken," a good example of the " humanitarian " poem, 
 unspoiled by weakness, vagueness, or gush ; Michael Field's 
 " Birds in an Autumn Sky " ; and several more by other 
 living or dead (but alive in copyright as well as beauty) 
 writers^ are further serious losses. A limited expenditure 
 only on copyright fees was available, so that I had not 
 only to keep an eye for cheapness in purchase as well as 
 
INTRODUCTION 29 
 
 merit in poetry in my choice of other poets within copy- 
 right, but to be very sparing in what I drew from them. 
 The forbidden fruit here are poems by Mr. Hodgson, Mr. 
 Stephens, Mr. Davies, Mr. Hardy, Francis Ledwidge, Mr. 
 Martin Armstrong (" The Thrush "), and others. I am 
 in no way reflecting upon the copyright law in making a 
 necessary explanation of certain modern omissions in the 
 book, and I am bound to say that nearly all the authors 
 whom I approached, whether known or unknown to me 
 personally, did everything they possibly could to help me. 
 The acknowledgments I have to make, if not so numerous 
 as I had hoped, are the more heartily tendered on that 
 account. Through the authors and publishers to be named, 
 moreover, the continuity and, I hope, representative char- 
 acter of the book has been just preserved up to the present 
 day. I am particularly indebted to Mr. Wilfred Meynell 
 for allowing me to use Francis Thompson's " The Ques- 
 tion," six poems by John Banister Tabb, and Mrs. Meynell's 
 " In Early Spring," from Poems (191 3) ; to Mr. Edmund 
 Blunden for giving me free use of his text of John Clare 
 and sending me an unpublished poem of his own ; to Mr. 
 Thomas Hardy for three of his finest poems ; to the editor 
 of the Nation and Mr. Holbrook Jackson for Mr. Hodgson's 
 unpublished " Hymn to Moloch " ; to Messrs. Macmillan 
 for the same poet's " Stupidity Street " and an extract from 
 "The Song of Honour," from Poems {i<)ii), and Mr. Hardy's 
 "The Blinded Bird"; to Mr. J. C. Squire for his long and 
 freely tendered "The Birds"; to Lady Grey of Falloden for a 
 poem from " Windlestraw " ; to Messrs. Longmans, Green & 
 Co. for extracts from Jean Ingelow's "Honours" and "Songs 
 of Seven " ; to the Earl of Lytton for a piece from " Owen 
 Meredith's " Fables in Song ; to Mrs. F. W. Bourdillon for 
 two poems by F. W. Bourdillon ; to Mrs, Sylvia Lynd for 
 
30 INTRODUCTION 
 
 her poem " Goldfinches " ; to Mr. Robert Garnett for 
 Richard Garnett's " The Violet to the Nightingale " ; and 
 to Miss Eleanor Far j eon for a poem from Tomfooleries. The 
 customary charges were not made for any of these poems. 
 
 I am also happy to express my obligations for obtaining 
 the right to use certain poems for half of the usual or a small 
 or a reduced fee — to Messrs. Allen & Unwin for Mr. 
 Hodgson's " The Missel Thrush " from The Last Blackbird 
 (1907) ; to Lord Dunsany for Francis Ledwidge's " To a 
 Linnet in a Cage " from Songs of the Fields and " The 
 Sparrow " from Last Songs ; to Mr. Harold Monro for 
 T. P. Cameron Wilson's " Magpies in Picardy " ; to Mr. 
 Gerard Hopkins and Mr. Milford for " The Woodlark " of 
 Father Hopkins's ; to Mr. Jonathan Cape for Mr. W. H. 
 Davies's " Day's Black Star " from his Collected Poems ; to 
 Messrs. Macmillan for Mr. James Stephens's " Song " 
 (shortened) from The Hill of Vision and " The Fifteen 
 Acres " from The Adventures of Seumas Beg ; to Mr. Elkin 
 Mathews for J. E. Flecker's " Tenebris Interlucentem " 
 from The Bridge of Fire ; and to Mr. Martin Seeker for Mr. 
 Martin Armstrong's " The Buzzards " from the volume of 
 that name. I have to give my warm thanks to Mr. 
 Stephens, Mr. Davies, and Mr. Armstrong for their 
 ready help and permission. I must apologise to anyone 
 whose rights I may have quite inadvertently overlooked. 
 
 What I owe to Mr. Squire, who has written a Preface, and 
 two other friends, who have helped me in various ways in 
 compiling this volume, cannot be expressed — one has hunted 
 me out three or four very rare poems and given me inex- 
 haustible good counsel. Without the aid, the discoveries, 
 the critical penetration, the soundness of judgment and 
 fertility of suggestion of the third, it is certain I could not 
 have completed the book. 
 
FROM THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RESTORATION 
 
THE VENERABLE BEDE 
 (673-735) 
 
 SPARROWS AND MEN* 
 
 Man's life is like a Sparrow, mighty King ! 
 That, stealing in, while by the fire you sit 
 Housed with rejoicing friends, is seen to flit 
 Safe from the storm, in comfort tarrying. 
 Here did it enter — there, on hasty wing 
 Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold ; 
 But whence it came we know not, nor behold 
 Whither it goes. E'en such that transient Thing, 
 The human Soul ; not utterly unknown 
 While in the Body lodged, her warm abode : — 
 But from what world She came, what woe or weal 
 On her departure waits, no tongue hath shewn : 
 This mystery if the Stranger can reveal. 
 His be a welcome cordially bestoWed ! 
 
 33 
 
DAVID AP GWYLYM 
 (14th Century) 
 
 II 
 
 THE MASS OF THE BIRDS* 
 
 This morning, lying couched amid the grass 
 In the deep deep dingle south of Llangwyth's Pass, 
 While it was yet neither quite bright nor dark, 
 I heard a new and wonderful High Mass. 
 
 The Chief Priest was the nightingale : the lark 
 And thrush assisted him : and some small bird 
 (I do not weet his name) '0 acted as clerk. 
 My spirit was lapt in ecstasy : each word, 
 Word after word, thrilled through me like the deep 
 Rich music of a dream : not wholly asleep 
 Nor all awake was I, but, as it were. 
 Tranced somewhere between one state and the other. 
 All heavy thoughts that through the long day smother 
 Man's heart and %oul with weariness and care 
 Were gone, and in their place reigned pure delight. 
 The nightingale, sent from a far and bright 
 Land by my golden sister, (') prophesied 
 Of blessed days to come, in a sweet voice : 
 And the smaU bird, responding, sang " Rejoice ! 
 
 Rejoice ! » 
 I heard his little bill tinkle and jingle 
 With a clear silver sound that filled the dingle. 
 Heaven is a state wherein bliss and devotion mingle. 
 And such was mine this morn : I could have died 
 Of rapture. Never knelt upon his hassock 
 Bishop or deacon with a holier feeling. 
 How beautifully shone the thrush's cassock 
 Covered all over with a thousand strange 
 And lovely flowers, like those upon an Arabesque ceiling ! 
 
 34 
 
DAVID AP GWYLYM 35 
 
 The altar seemed of such resplendent gold 
 
 As no man, even a miser, would exchange 
 
 For all the jewels in the East of old. 
 
 Two hours I lay admiring all I saw, 
 
 Yet those two hours appeared to me no more 
 
 Than as a moment : I look back with awe 
 
 And wonder at what then I thought and felt, 
 
 And would give all my fame and all my lore. 
 
 Yea, even almost my life, but to restore 
 
 The rapturous emotions that then dwelt 
 
 Within my bosom. Ah ! this may not be — . 
 
 But glory unto God, who in his infinite love 
 
 Created man to enjoy to eternity 
 
 Even greater happiness in his own Heaven above ! 
 
GEOFFREY CHAUCER 
 (i 340-1400 ?) 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE BRIDDES IN MAY* 
 
 The briddes that han left hir song, 
 Whyl they han suffred cold so strong 
 In wedres grille, and derk to sighte, 
 Ben in May, for the sonne brighte, 
 So glade, that they shewe in singing, 
 That in hir herte is swich lyking, 
 That they mote singen and he light. 
 Then doth the nightingale hir might 
 To make noyse, and singen blythe. 
 Then is blisful, many a sythe. 
 The chelaundre (') and the papingay.(') 
 Then yonge folk entenden ay 
 For to ben gay and amorous. 
 The tyme is then so savorous. 
 Hard is his herte that loveth nought 
 In May, when al this mirth is wrought ; 
 When he may on these braunches here 
 The smale briddes singen clere 
 Hir blisful swete song pitous. 
 
 For out of toun me list to gon 
 The sowne of briddes for to here, 
 That on these busshes singen clere. 
 And in the swete sesoun that leef is, 
 With a threde basting my slevis, ' 
 Aloon I wente in my playing. 
 The smale foules song harkning ; 
 That peyned hem ful many a payre 
 To singe on bowes blosmed fayre. 
 36 
 
GEOFFREY CHAUCER 37 
 
 IV 
 
 SEYNT VALENTYNES DAY* 
 
 Ther mighte men the royal egle finde, 
 
 That with his sharpe look perceth the Sonne ; 
 
 And other egles of a lower kiride, 
 
 Of which that clerkes wel devysen conne.(0 
 
 Ther was the tyraunt with his f ethres donne 
 
 And greye, I mene the goshauk, that doth pyne (') 
 
 To briddes for his outrageous ravyne. 
 
 The gentil f aucon, (') that with his feet distreyneth 
 The kinges hond ; the hardy sperhauk eke,(*) 
 The quayles foo ; the merlion (') that peyneth 
 Him-self ful ofte, the larke for to seke ; 
 Ther was the douve, with hir eyen meke ; 
 The jalous swan, ay ens his deth that sing'eth ; 
 The oule eke, that of dethe the bode bringeth ; 
 
 The crane the geaunt,(°) with his trompes soune ; 
 The thief, the chogh ; and eke the jangling pye ; 
 The scorning jay ; the eles foo, the heroune ; 
 The false lapwing, (') ful of treacherye ; 
 The stare, (*) that the counseyl can bewrye ; 
 The tame ruddok,(») and the coward kyte ; 
 The cok, that orloge is of thorpes (") lyte ; 
 
 The sparow, Venus sone ; the nightingale. 
 That clepeth (") forth the fresshe lieves newe ; 
 The swalow, mordrer of the flyes smale (") 
 That maken hony of floures fresshe of hewe ; 
 The wedded turtel, with hir herte trewe ; 
 The pecock, with his aungels fethres brighte ; 
 The fesaunt, scorner of the cok by nighte ; 
 
38 GEOFFREY CHAUCER 
 
 The waker goos ; the cukkow ever unkinde ; 
 
 The papingay, ful of delicasye ; 
 
 The drake, stroyer of his owne kinde ; 
 
 The stork, the wreker of avouterye (") ; 
 
 The hote cormeraunt of glotonye ; 
 
 The raven wys, the crow with vois of care ; 
 
 The throstel olde ; the frosty feldefare. 
 
 What shulde I seyn ? of foules every kinde 
 
 That in this worlde han fethres and stature, 
 
 Men mighten in that place assembled finde 
 
 Before the noble goddesse Nature. 
 
 And everich of hem did his besy cure 
 
 Benignely to chese or for to take, 
 
 By hir accord, his formel or his make.("). 
 
GEOFFREY CHAUCER 39 
 
 V 
 
 THE ROUNDEL OF THE SMALE FOULES* 
 
 Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, 
 That hast this wintres weders over-shake, 
 And driven awey the longe nightes blake ! 
 
 Seynt Valentyne, that art ful hy on lofte ; — 
 Thus singen smale foules for thy sake — 
 
 Nozii welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, 
 That hast this wintres weders over-shake, 
 And driven awey the longe nightes blake ! 
 
 Wei han they cause for to gladen ofte, 
 Sith ech of hem recovered hath his niake (0 ; 
 Ful blisful may they singen when they wake ; 
 Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, 
 That hast this wintres weders over-shake. 
 And driven awey the longe nightes blake J 
 
40 GEOFFREY CHAUCER 
 
 VI 
 
 THE CAGE* 
 
 Tak any brid, and put it in a cage, 
 And do al thyn entente, and thy corage 
 To fostre it tendrely with mete and drinke. 
 Of alle deyntees that thou canst bithinke, 
 And kepe it al so clenly as thou may ; 
 Al-though his cage of gold be never so gay, 
 Yet hath this brid, by twenty thousand fold, 
 Lever in a forest, that is rude and cold, 
 Gon ete wormes and swich wretchednesse. 
 For ever this brid wol doon his bisinesse 
 To escape out of his cage, if he may : 
 His liberty this brid desireth ay. 
 
JAMES I OF SCOTLAND 
 (i 394-1437) 
 
 VII 
 
 A MAY BURDEN* 
 
 And on the smalle greene twistis Q) sat 
 The little sweete nightingale, and sung 
 So loud and clear the hymnes consecrat 
 Of love's use : now soft, now loud among, 
 That aU the gardens and the walles rung 
 Right of their song 
 
 Worship, ye that lovers been, this May, 
 For of your bliss the Kalends are begun ; 
 And sing with us, " Away, winter, away ! 
 Gsme, summer, come, the sweet season and sun ! 
 Awake, for shame, that have your heavens won. 
 And amorously lift up your heades all ; 
 Thank Love, that list you to his mercy call." 
 
 When they this song had sung a little thraw,f) 
 
 They stent awhile, and therewith unaffrayed. 
 
 As I beheld and cast mine eyne alaw. 
 
 From bough to bough they hipped, and they played, 
 
 And freshly in their birdes kind arrayed 
 
 Their feathers new, and fret them in the sun. 
 
 And thanked Love that han their mat^s won. 
 
WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 (1460- ?) 
 
 VIII 
 
 MIRTH OF MAY* 
 
 RicHT as the stern (') of day began to shine, 
 When gone to bed was Vesper and Lucine,(*) 
 
 I rose, and by a rosere (') did me rest ; 
 Up sprang the goldin candil raatutine, 
 With clear depurit (*) beamis crystalline, 
 
 Glading the mirry fowlis in their nest ; 
 
 Or Phoebus was in purpour cape revest. 
 Up rose the lark, the heavenis minstrel fine, 
 
 In May, in till a morrow mirthfullest. 
 
 Full angelic the birdis sang their hours, 
 
 Within their courtings' (^) green, within their bowers, 
 
 Apparellit with white and red, with bloomis sweet ; 
 Enamelit was the field with all colours. 
 The pearly dropis shook in silver showers. 
 
 While all in balm did branch & lea vis fleit,^) 
 
 Depart fra Phoebus, did Aurora greet ; 
 Her crystall tears I saw hung on the flowers, 
 
 While he for love all drank up with his heat. 
 
 For mirth of May, with skipis & with hops. 
 The birdis sang upon the tender crops, 
 
 With curious notes, as Venus chapel-clerks. 
 The roses red, now spreading of their knops,(') 
 Were powdered bricht with heavenly beryal (') drops, 
 
 Through beamis red, leming (°) as ruby sparks ; 
 
 The skyes rang for shouting of the larks. 
 The purpour heaven, ourscalit (") in silver slops, (") 
 
 Ourgilt the trees, branchis, leavis, and barks. 
 42 
 
JOHN SKELTON 
 (1460 ?-iS09) 
 
 IX 
 
 THE BOOK OF PHILIP SPARROW 
 
 When I remember again 
 
 How my Philip was slain, 
 
 Never half the pain 
 
 Was between you twain, 
 
 Pyramus and Thisbe, 
 
 As then befell to me : 
 
 I wept and I wailed, 
 
 The tears down hailed ; 
 
 But nothing it availed 
 
 To call Philip again, 
 
 Whom Gyb our cat hath slain. 
 
 ' Heu, heu, me, 
 
 That I am woe for thee ! 
 
 Ad Dominum, cum tribularer, clamavi : 
 
 Of God nothing else crave I 
 
 But Philip's soul to keep 
 
 From the marees (') deep 
 
 Of Acherontes well,(^*) 
 
 That is a flood of hell ; 
 
 And from the great Pluto, 
 
 The prince of endless woe ; 
 
 And from foul Alecto, 
 
 With visage black and bio (''') ; 
 
 And from Medusa, that mare,("') 
 
 That like a fiend doth stare ; 
 
 Do mi nus, 
 Help now, sweet Jesus ! 
 43 
 
44 JOHN SKELTON 
 
 Levavi oculos meos in montes : 
 Would God I had Xenophontis, 
 Or Socrates the wise, 
 To show me their devise, 
 Moderately to take 
 This sorrow that I make 
 For PhUip Sparrow's sake ! 
 
 It had a velvet cap, 
 And would sit upon my lap, 
 And seek after small worms. 
 And sometimes white bread crumbs ; 
 And many times and oft 
 Between my breastes soft (^*) 
 It would lie and rest ; 
 It was proper and prest.('°) 
 
 Sometimes he would gasp 
 When he saw a wasp ; 
 A fly or a gnat, 
 He would fly at that ; 
 And prettily he would pant 
 When he saw an ant ; 
 Lord, how he would pry 
 After the butterfly ! 
 Lord, how he would hop 
 After the grasshop ! 
 And when I said, Phip phip, 
 Then he would leap and skip. 
 And take me by the lip. 
 Alas, it will be slo. 
 That Philip is gone me fro ! 
 
JOHN SKELTON 45 
 
 For it would come and go, 
 And fly so to and fro ; 
 And on me it would leap 
 When I was asleep, 
 And his feathers shake 
 Wherewith he would make 
 Me often for to wake. 
 And for to take him in 
 Upon my naked skin ; 
 God wot, we thought no sin : 
 What though he crept so low ? 
 It was no hurt, I trow, 
 He did nothing, perdie. 
 But sit upon my knee : 
 Philip, though he were nice,('') 
 In him it was no vice ; 
 Philip had leave to go 
 To pick my little toe ('^) ; 
 Philip might be bold 
 And do what he would ; 
 Philip would seek and take 
 All the flees blake 
 That he could there espy 
 With his wanton eye. 
 
 That vengeance I ask and cry. 
 By way of exclamation. 
 On all the whole nation 
 Of cats wild and tame ; 
 God send them sorrow and shame . 
 That cat especially 
 That slew so cruelly 
 
46 JOHN SKELTON 
 
 My little pretty sparrow 
 
 That I brought up at Carow.(') 
 
 O cat of churlish kind, 
 The fiend was in thy mind 
 When thou my bird untwined ! (') 
 I would thou hadst been blind ! 
 The leopards savage, 
 The lions in their rage. 
 Might catch thee in their paws, 
 And gnaw thee in their jaws ! 
 The serpents of Lybiey 
 Might sting thee venomously ! 
 The dragons with their tongues 
 Might poison thy liver and lungs ! 
 
 Of India the greedy gripes (*) 
 Might tear out all thy tripes ! 
 Of Arcady the bears 
 Might pluck away thine ears ! 
 The wild wolf Lycaon (") 
 Bite asunder thy backbone ! 
 Of Etna the burning hill, 
 That day and night burneth still. 
 Set thy tail in a blaze. 
 That all the world may gaze 
 And wonder upon thee. 
 From Ocean, the great sea, 
 Unto the Isles of Orcady, 
 From Tilbury ferry 
 To the plain of Salisbury ! 
 
JOHN SKELTON 47 
 
 Alas I say again, 
 Death hath departed (°) us twain ! 
 The false cat hath thee slain : 
 Farewell, Philip, adieu ! 
 Our Lord thy soul rescue ! 
 Farewell without restore, 
 Farewell for evermore ! 
 
 And it were a Jew, 
 It would make one rue, 
 To see my sorrow new. 
 These vUlanous false cats 
 Were made for mice and rats, 
 And not for birdes small. 
 Alas, my face waxeth pale, 
 Telling this piteous tale, 
 How my bird so fair, 
 That was wont to repair. 
 And go in at my spare (') 
 And creep in at my gore 
 Of my gown before, 
 Flickering with his wings ! 
 Alas, my heart it stings. 
 Remembering pretty things ! 
 Alas, mine heart it slayeth 
 My Philip's doleful death. 
 When I remember it, 
 How prettily it would sit. 
 Many times and oft. 
 Upon my finger aloft ! 
 I played with him tittle tattle, 
 And fed him with my spittle, 
 
48 JOHN SKELTON 
 
 With, his bill between my lips ; 
 
 It was my pretty Phips ! 
 
 Many a pretty kiss 
 
 Had I of his sweet muss (') ; 
 
 And now the cause is thus, 
 
 That he is slain me fro, 
 
 To my great pain and woe. 
 
 To weep with me look that ye come, 
 All manner of birds in your kind ; 
 See none be left behind. 
 To mourning look that ye fall 
 With dolorous songs funeral. 
 Some to sing, and some to say, 
 Some to weep, and some to pray, 
 Every bird in his lay. 
 The goldfinch, the wagtail ; 
 The jangling (') jay to rail, 
 The flecked pie to chatter 
 Of this dolorous matter ; 
 And Robin Redbreast, 
 He shall be the priest 
 The requiem mass to sing. 
 Softly warbling. 
 
 With help of the red sparrow, ('") 
 And the chattering swallow, 
 This hearse for to hallow ; 
 The lark with his lung too ; 
 The spink,(") and the martinet also ; 
 The shoveller with his brode beak ; 
 The doterell, that foolish peek,(") 
 And also the mad coot, 
 With a bald face to toot (") ; 
 
JOHN SKELTON 49 
 
 The fieldfare, and the snite(''); 
 
 The crow, and the kite ; 
 
 The raven, called Rolf, 
 
 His plain-song to solf (") ; 
 
 The partridge, the quail ; 
 
 The plover with us to wail ; 
 
 The woodhack,('') that singeth chur 
 
 Hoarsely, as he had the mur ('^*) ; 
 
 The lusty chanting nightingale ; 
 
 The popinjay (") to tell her tale, 
 
 That toteth (") oft in a glass, 
 
 Shall read the Gospel at mass ; 
 
 The mavis with her whistle 
 
 Shall read there the epistle. 
 
 But with a large and a long 
 
 To keep just plain song. 
 
 Our chanters shall be the cuckoo, 
 
 The culver, the stockdove, 
 
 With pewit the lapwing. 
 
 The versicles shall sing. 
 
 The bitter with his bump,(") 
 
 The crane with his trump, 
 
 The swan of Menander,(*'') 
 
 The goose and the gander. 
 
 The duck and the drake. 
 
 Shall watch at this wake ; 
 
 The peacock so proud, 
 
 Because his voice is loud, 
 
 And hath a glorious tail. 
 
 He shall sing the grail ; 
 
 The owl, that is so foul, 
 
 Must help us to howl ; 
 
 The heron so gaunt, 
 
so JOHN SKELTON 
 
 And the cormeraunt, 
 
 With the pheasant, 
 
 And the gaggling gant,(") 
 
 And the churlish chough ; 
 
 The route and the kough ("*) ; 
 
 The barnacle, (") the buzzard, 
 
 With the wild mallard ; 
 
 The divendop (") to sleep ; 
 
 The waterhen to weep ; 
 
 The puffin and the teal 
 
 Money they shall deal 
 
 To poor folk at large ; 
 
 That shall be their charge ; 
 
 The seamew and the titmouse. 
 
 The woodcock with the long nose ; 
 
 The throstle with her warbling, (^') 
 
 The starling with her brabling ; 
 
 The rook, with the osprey 
 
 That putteth fishes to a fray (") ; 
 
 And the dainty curlew. 
 
 With the turtle most true. 
 
 But for the eagle doth fly 
 
 Highest in the sky, 
 
 He shall be the sedean C°) 
 
 The choir to demean, (") 
 
 As provost principal. 
 
 To teach them their ordinal (") ; 
 
 Also the noble falcon. 
 
 With the gerfalcon. 
 
 The tiercel genti^"") 
 
 They shall mourn soft and still 
 
 In their amise of grey ; 
 
JOHN SKELTON 51 
 
 The sacre ('") with them shall say 
 
 Dirige for Philip's soul ; 
 
 The goshawk shall have a role 
 
 The choristers to controU ; 
 
 The lanners and the marlions (") 
 
 Shall stand in their mourning gowns ; 
 
 The hobby and the musket (") 
 
 The censers and the cross shall fet ; 
 
 The kestrel in aU this work 
 
 Shall be holy water clerk. 
 
 Credo videre bona Domini, 
 
 I pray God, Philip to heaven may fly ! 
 
 Domini, exaudi orationem ineam ! 
 
 To heaven he shall, from heaven he came ! 
 
 Do mi nus vo bis cum ! 
 
 Deus, cui oremus frofrium est miserere et parcere. 
 
 On Philip's soul have pity ! 
 
 For he was a pretty cock. 
 
 And came of a gentle stock, 
 
 And wrapt in a maiden's smock, 
 
 And cherished fuU daintily, 
 
 Till cruel fate made him to die : 
 
 Alas for doleful destiny ! 
 
 But whereto should I 
 
 Longer mourn or cry ? 
 
 To Jupiter I call,(") 
 
 Of heaven imperial. 
 
 That Philip may fly 
 
 Above the starry sky. 
 
 To tread the pretty wren. 
 
 That is Our Lady's hen : 
 
 Amen, amen, amen ! 
 
GAVIN DOUGLAS 
 
 (1474-1522) X 
 
 MAY* 
 
 The merle, the mavis, and the nichtingale. 
 With mirry notis mirthfully forth burst, 
 Enforcing them wha micht do clink it best : 
 The cushat croudis (') and pykkis ('*) on the rise. 
 The starling changis divers stevennis nise,(*) 
 The sparrow chirmis (') in the wallis clift, 
 Goldspink and lintwhite (*) fordinnand the liftjC) 
 The cuckow calls, and so whitteris (') the quail. 
 While riveris reirdit,!"") schawls C"*) and every dale, 
 And tender twistis (') tremblit on the trees. 
 For birdis sang, and beming (') of the bees. 
 In warblis duke of heavenly armonies, 
 The larkis loud releischand (°) in the skies, 
 Louis their leige {'") with tonis curious ; 
 Both to dame Nature, and the freshe Venus, 
 Rendring high laudis in their observance. 
 Whose suggarid throatis made glade heartis dance, 
 And all small fowlis singis on the spray ; 
 Welcome the lord of licht, and lamp of day, 
 Welcome fosterer of tender herbis green. 
 Welcome quickener of flourist flouris sheen. 
 Welcome support of every root and vein, 
 Welcome comfort of all kind fruit and grain, 
 Welcome the birdis beUd (") upon the brier. 
 Welcome master and ruler of the year. 
 Welcome welfare of husbands at the ploughs. 
 Welcome repairer of woods, trees, and boughs. 
 Welcome depainter of the bloomit meads. 
 Welcome the life of every thing that spreads, 
 Welcome storer ('*) of all kind bestial. 
 Welcome be thy bricht beamis, gladdand all. 
 52 
 
WILLIAM WAGER 
 (Fl. 1566) 
 
 A CATCH* 
 
 I HAVE a pretty titmouse 
 Come pecking on my toe. 
 Gossip, with you I purpose 
 To drink before I go. 
 Little pretty nightingale, 
 Among the branches green, 
 Give us of your Christmas ale, 
 In the honour of Saint Stephen. 
 Robin Redbreast with his notes 
 Singing aloft in the quire, 
 Warneth to get you frieze coats, 
 For Winter then draweth near. 
 My bridle lieth on the shelf. 
 If you will have any more, 
 Vouchsafe to sing it yourself. 
 For here you have all my store. 
 
 53 
 
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 (1554-1586) 
 
 XII 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth 
 Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, 
 While late-bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, 
 Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making ; 
 And mournfully bewailing, 
 Her throat in tunes expresseth 
 What grief her breast oppresseth 
 For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing. 
 
 Philomela fair, take some gladness 
 That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness : 
 Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth ; 
 Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth. 
 
 Alas, she hath no other cause of anguish 
 
 But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken, 
 Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish, 
 Full womanlike complains her will was broken. 
 But I, who, daily craving, 
 Cannot have to content me. 
 Have more cause to lament me, 
 Since wanting is more woe than too much having. 
 
 O Philomela fair, O take some gladness 
 That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness : 
 Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth ; 
 Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth. 
 
 54 
 
EDMUND SPENSER 
 (1552-1598) 
 
 XIII 
 
 FROM " PROTHALAMION " 
 
 With that I saw two Swans (^) of goodly hew 
 Come softly swimming down along the lee ; 
 Two fairer Birds I yet did never see ; 
 The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew, 
 Did never whiter shew ; 
 Nor Jove himself, when he a Swan would be. 
 For love of Leda, whiter did appear ; 
 Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, 
 Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near ; 
 So purely white they were, 
 
 That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, 
 Seemed foul to them, and bade his billows spare 
 To wet their silken feathers, lest they might 
 SoU their fair plumes with water not so fair. 
 And mar their beauties bright, 
 That shone as heaven's light, 
 Against their Bridal day, which was not long : 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. 
 
 55 
 
$6 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 XIV 
 
 FROM •' EPITHALAMION " * 
 
 Hark how the cheerful! birds do chaunt their lays 
 
 And carol of love's praise. 
 
 The merry lark her matins sings aloft, 
 
 The thrush replies, the mavis descant (') plays. 
 
 The ousel shrills, the ruddock warbles soft. 
 
 So goodly aU agree with sweet consent, 
 
 To this day's merriment. 
 
 Ah, my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long. 
 
 When meeter were that ye should now awake, 
 
 T' await the coming of your joyous make. 
 
 And hearken to the birds' love-learned song, 
 
 The dewy leaves among ? 
 
 For they of joy and pleasance to you sing, 
 
 TJiat all the woods them aiiswer ^ijd their echo ring. 
 
THOMAS NASHE 
 (1567-1601) 
 
 XV 
 
 SPRING * 
 
 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king ; 
 Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring ; 
 Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, 
 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! 
 
 The palm and the may make country houses gay ; 
 Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day ; 
 And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay, 
 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo. 
 
 The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet ; 
 Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit ; 
 In every street these tunes our ears do greet. 
 Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo. 
 Spring, the sweet Spring. 
 
 57 
 
JOHN LYLY 
 (iSS3-i6o6) 
 
 XVI 
 
 SPRING'S WELCOME* 
 
 What bird so sings, yet so does wail ? 
 'tis the ravish'd nightingale ! 
 
 7^g, m, in, in, ^^^^^ ■' she cries, 
 And still her woes at midnight rise. 
 Brave prick-song (^) ! Who is't now we hear ? 
 None but the lark so shrill and clear ; 
 Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings, 
 The morn not waking till she sings. 
 Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat 
 Poor robin redbreast tunes his note ! 
 Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing 
 Cuckoo / to welcome in the spring ! 
 Cuckoo ! to welcome in the spring ! 
 
 58 
 
ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY 
 (1590 ?-i6io i) 
 
 XVII 
 
 A BIRD COMMITTEE 
 
 The cushat crouds, the corbie cries, 
 The cuckoo couks, the prattling pyes 
 
 To geek (^) there they begin ; 
 The jargon of the jangling jays. 
 The craiking craws and keekling kays. 
 
 They deave't ('*) me with their din. 
 The painted pawn (^) with Argus eyes 
 
 Can on his May-cock call ; 
 The turtle wails on withered trees, 
 And Echo answers all. 
 Repeating, with greeting. 
 How fair Narcissus fell. 
 By lying and spying 
 His shadow in the well. 
 
 59 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 (1564-1616) 
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE OUSEL-COCK SO BLACK OF HUE* 
 
 The ousel-cock, so black of hue, 
 
 With orange-tawny bill, 
 The throstle with his note so true. 
 
 The wren with little quills j 
 The finch, the sparrow, and the lark. 
 
 The plain-song cuckoo gray. 
 Whose note full many a man doth mark. 
 
 And dares not answer nay. 
 
 60 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 6i 
 
 XIX 
 
 WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER* 
 
 When daffodils begin to peer. 
 
 With heigh ! the doxy over the dale, 
 
 Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year ; 
 
 For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. 
 
 The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, 
 
 With heigh ! the sweet birds, 0, how they sing ! 
 
 Doth set my pugging (') tooth on edge ; 
 For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. 
 
 The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, 
 
 With heigh ! with heigh ! the thrush and the jay : 
 Are summer songs for me and my aunts. 
 
 While we lie tumbling in the hay. 
 
62 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 XX 
 
 SPRING AND WINTER* 
 
 When daisies pied, and violets blue, 
 And lady-smocks all silver-white 
 
 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 
 
 Do paint the meadows with delight, 
 
 The cuckoo then, on every tree, 
 
 Mocks married men, for thus sings he, 
 Cuckoo '; 
 
 Cuckoo, cuckoo, — word of fear, 
 
 Unpleasing to a married ear ! 
 
 When shepherds pipe on oaten straws. 
 
 And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, (') 
 
 When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws. 
 
 And maidens bleach their summer smocks. 
 
 The cuckoo then, on every tree, etc., etc. 
 
 When icicles hang by the wall. 
 
 And Dick the shepherd blows his nail. 
 
 And Tom bears logs into the hall, 
 
 And milk comes frozen home in pail. 
 
 When blood is nipped, and ways be foul. 
 
 Then nightly sings the staring owl, 
 To-whit ; 
 To-who, a merry note. 
 
 While greasy Joan doth keel (') the pot. 
 
 When aU around the wind doth blow, 
 
 And coughing drowns the parson's saw. 
 
 And birds sit brooding in the snow, 
 
 And Marian's nose looks red and raw. 
 
 When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl. 
 
 Then nightly sings the staring owl, etc., etc. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 63 
 
 " WILT THOU BE GONE ..." * 
 
 Jul. Wilt thou be gone ? it is not near day : 
 It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
 That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear ; 
 Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree : 
 Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. 
 Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn. 
 
 No nightingale : look, love, what envious streaks 
 Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east : 
 Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops : 
 I must be gone and live, or stay and die. 
 
 Jul. Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I : 
 It is some meteor that the sun exhales. 
 To be to thee this night a torch-bearer. 
 And light thee on thy way to Mantua : 
 Therefore stay yet ; thou need'st not to be gone. 
 Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death ; 
 I am content, so thou wilt have it so. 
 I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye, 
 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow ; 
 Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat 
 The vaulty heaven so high above our heads : 
 I have more care to stay than wUl to go : 
 Come, death, and welcome ! Juliet wills it so. 
 How is't, my soul ? let's talk ; it is not day. 
 
 Jul. It is, it is ; hie hence, be gone, away ! 
 It is the lark that sings so out of tune. 
 Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. 
 Some say the lark makes sweet division ; 
 
64 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This doth not so, for she divideth us : 
 Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes ; 
 ! now I would they had changed voices too, 
 Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, 
 Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day. 
 O ! now be gone ; more light and light it grows 
 Rom. More light and light ; more dark and dark our woes. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 65 
 
 XXII 
 
 THE MARTLET* 
 
 This guest of summer, 
 The temple-haunting martlet, does approve 
 By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath 
 Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze. 
 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : 
 Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd 
 The air is delicate. 
 
RICHARD BARNFIELD 
 (1574-1627) 
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 As it fell upon a day 
 
 In the merry month of May, 
 
 Sitting in a pleasant shade 
 
 Which a grove of myrtles made, 
 
 Beasts did leap and birds did sing. 
 
 Trees did grow, and plants did spring ; 
 
 Every thing did banish moan 
 
 Save the Nightingale alone. 
 
 She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 
 
 Lean'd her breast up till a thorn, 
 
 And there sung the dolefull'st ditty 
 
 That to hear it was great pity. 
 
 Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry ; 
 
 Teru, teru, by and by : 
 
 That to hear her so complain 
 
 Scarce I could from tears refrain ; 
 
 For her griefs so lively shown 
 
 Made me think upon mine own. 
 
 Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, 
 
 None takes pity on thy pain ; 
 
 Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee, 
 
 Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee ; 
 
 King Pandion,(') he is dead. 
 
 All thy friends are lapp'd in lead ; 
 
 All thy fellow birds do sing 
 
 Careless of thy sorrowing ; 
 
 Even so, poor bird, like thee 
 
 None alive will pity me. 
 
 66 
 
MICHAEL DRAYTON 
 (1563-1631) 
 
 XXIV 
 
 A WARWICKSHIRE MORNING* 
 
 When Phcebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, 
 No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave, 
 At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring, 
 But hunts-up to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing : 
 And in the lower grove, as in the rising knoll, 
 Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole. 
 Those quiristers are percht with many a speckled breast. 
 Then from her burnished gate the goodly glitt'ring east 
 Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night 
 Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight ; 
 On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats, 
 Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes, 
 That hUls and valleys ring, and even the echoing air 
 Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere. 
 The throstle, with shrill sharps, as purposely he sung 
 T'awake the listless sun ; or chiding, that so long 
 He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill ; 
 The ousel near at hand, that hath a golden bill. 
 As Nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us see 
 That from all other birds his tunes should different be : 
 For, with their vocal sounds they sing to pleasant May ; 
 Upon his dulcet pipe Q) the merle doth only play. 
 Wien in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by. 
 In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply. 
 As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw. 
 And but that Nature — by her all constraining law — 
 Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite, 
 They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night — _ 
 
 67 
 
68 MICHAEL DRAYTON 
 
 The more to use their ears — their voices sure would spare, 
 
 That moduleth her notes so admirably rare, 
 
 As man to set in parts at first had learned of her. 
 
 To Philomel the next, the linnet we prefer ; 
 And by that warbling bird, the woodlark place we then, 
 The red-sparrow, (^) the nope,(') the redbreast, and the 
 
 wren. 
 The yellow-pate, (') which, though she hurt the blooming 
 
 tree, 
 Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she. 
 And of these chanting fowls, the goldfinch not behind, 
 That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.(') 
 The tydy (") for her notes as delicate as they. 
 The laughing hecco,(') then the counterfeiting jay. 
 The softer with the shrill — some hid among the leaves, 
 Some in the taUer trees, some in the lower greaves — 
 Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun. 
 Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head doth run. 
 And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps 
 To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps. 
 
BEN JONSON 
 (1574-1637) 
 
 NATURE'S ACCORD* 
 
 How is't each bough a several music yields ? 
 The lusty throstle, early nightingale, 
 Accord in tune, though vary in their tale ; 
 The chirping swallow call'd forth by the sun. 
 And crested lark doth his divisions run ? 
 The yellow bees the air with murmur fill. 
 The finches carol, and the turtles bill ? 
 Whose power is this ? what god ? 
 
 69 
 
THOMAS DEKKER 
 (1575-1641) 
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY* 
 
 0, THE month of May, the merry month of May, 
 So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green ! 
 0, and then did I unto my true love say. 
 Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen. 
 
 Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale. 
 
 The sweetest singer in all the forest quire, 
 
 Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale : 
 
 Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier. 
 
 But 0, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo ; 
 See where she sitteth ; come away, my joy : 
 Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo 
 Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy. 
 
 0, the month of May, the merry month of May, 
 So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green ! 
 0, and then did I unto my true love say. 
 Sweet Peg, thou shall be my Summer's Queen. 
 
 70 
 
WILLIAM BROWNE OF TAVISTOCK 
 (1588-1643) 
 
 XXVII 
 
 THE CONCERT* 
 
 Two nights thus pass'd : the lily-handed morn 
 
 Saw Phoebus stealing down from Ceres' corn. 
 
 The mounting lark (day's herald) got on wing, 
 
 Bidding each bird choose out his bough and sing. 
 
 The lofty treble sung the little Wren ; 
 
 Robin the mean, that best of all loves men ; 
 
 The Nightingale the tenor ; and the Thrush, 
 
 The counter-tenor, sweetly in a bush ; 
 
 And that the music might be full in parts. 
 
 Birds from the groves flew with right willing hearts : 
 
 But (as it seem'd) they thought (as do the swains, 
 
 Which tune their pipes on sack'd Hibernia's plains) 
 
 There should some droning part be, therefore will'd 
 
 Some bird to fly into a neighbouring field. 
 
 In embassy unto the king of bees. 
 
 To aid his partners on the flowers and trees ; 
 
 Who, condescending, gladly flew along 
 
 To bear the base to his well-tuned song. 
 
 The crow was wUling they should be beholding 
 
 For his deep voice, but, being hoarse with scolding. 
 
 He thus lends aid ; upon an oak doth climb, 
 
 And nodding with his head, so keeping time. 
 
 true delight, enharbouring the breasts 
 
 Of those sweet creatures with the plumy crests ! 
 
 Had Nature unto man such simpl'esse given, 
 
 He could, like birds, be far more near to Heaven. 
 
 71 
 
WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT 
 (1611-1643) 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 CELIA UPON HER SPARROW* 
 
 Tell me not of joy : there's none 
 Now my little Sparrow's gone ; 
 He, just as you 
 Would toy and woo, 
 He would chirp and flatter me. 
 He would hang the wing awhile, 
 Till at length he saw me smUe 
 Lord, how sullen he would be ! 
 
 He would catch a crumb, and then 
 Sporting let it go agen. 
 He from my lip 
 Would moisture sip ; 
 He would from my trencher feed. 
 Then would hop, and then would run 
 And cry Philip when h'had done, 
 whose heart can choose but bleed ? 
 
 how eager would he fight 
 And ne'er hurt though he bite ; 
 
 No morn did pass 
 
 But on my glass 
 He would sit and mark and do 
 What I did, now ruffle all 
 His feathers o'er, now let 'em fall 
 And then straightway sleek them too. 
 72 
 
^VILLIAM CARTWRIGHT 73 
 
 Whence will Cupid get his darts 
 Feathered now to pierce our hearts ? 
 
 A wound he may 
 
 Not Love convey, 
 Now this faithful bird is gone. 
 let mournful turtles join 
 With loving red-breasts, and combine 
 To sing dirges o'er his stone. 
 
WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN 
 (1585-1649) 
 
 SWEET BIRD ... * 
 
 Sweet Bird, that sing'st away the early Hours, 
 Of Winters past or coming void of care, 
 Well pleased with delights which present are, 
 Fair Seasons, budding Sprays, sweet-smelling Flowers , 
 To Rocks, to Springs, to Rills, from leafy Bowers 
 Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare. 
 And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare, 
 A stain to human sense in sin that lowers. 
 What Soul can be so sick, which by thy songs 
 (Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven 
 Quite to forget Earth's turmoUs, spights, and wrongs, 
 And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven ? 
 Sweet artless Songster, thou my mind dost raise 
 To airs of Spheres, yes and to Angels' lays. 
 
 74 
 
WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN 75 
 
 XXX 
 
 DEAR QUIRISTER ... * 
 
 Dear Quirister, who from those shadows sends 
 (Ere that the blushing Dawn dare show her light) 
 Such sad lamenting strains, that Night attends, 
 Become aU ear. Stars stay to hear thy plight. 
 If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends. 
 Who ne'er (not in a dream) did taste delight. 
 May thee importune who like case pretends, 
 And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despight, 
 Tell me (so may thou Fortune milder try. 
 And long long sing) for what thou thus complains ? 
 Sith (Winter gone) the Sun in dappled sky 
 Now smiles on Meadows, Mountains, Woods, and Plains : 
 The Bird, as if my questions did her move, 
 With trembling wings sobb'd forth / love, I love. 
 
THOMAS HEYWOOD 
 (i57f-i6so) 
 
 XXXI 
 
 MATIN SONG* 
 
 Pack, clouds, away ! and welcome, day ! 
 
 With night we banish sorrow. 
 Sweet air, blow soft ; mount, lark, aloft 
 
 To give my Love good-morrow ! 
 Wings from the wind to please her mind, 
 
 Notes from the lark I'U borrow : 
 Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing ! 
 
 To give my Love good-morrow ! 
 
 To give my Love good-morrow 
 Notes from them all I'U borrow. 
 
 Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast ! 
 
 Sing, birds, in every furrow ! 
 And from each hUl let music shriU 
 
 Give my fair Love good-morrow ! 
 Blackbird and thrush in every bush, 
 
 Stare, linnet and cocksparrow, 
 Yovi pretty elves, among yourselves 
 
 Sing my fair Love good-morrow ! 
 To give my Love good-morrow 
 Sing, birds, in every furrow ! 
 
 76 
 
THOMAS HEYWOOD 77 
 
 XXXII 
 
 THE MESSAGE* 
 
 Ye litde birds, that sit and sing 
 
 Amidst the shady valleys, 
 And see how Phillis sweetly walks 
 
 Within her garden-alleys ; 
 Go, pretty birds, about her bower; 
 
 Sing, pretty birds, she may not lower ; 
 Ah me ! methinks I see her frown ! 
 
 Ye pretty wantons, warble. 
 
 Go, tell her through your chirping bills, 
 As you by me are bidden. 
 
 To her is only known my love, 
 
 Which from the world is hidden. 
 
 Go, pretty birds, and tell her so ; 
 
 See that your notes strain not too low. 
 
 For still, methinks, I see her frown ; 
 Ye pretty wantons, warble. 
 
 Go, tune your voices' harmony. 
 And sing, I am her lover ; 
 Strain loud and sweet, that every note 
 
 With sweet content may move her : 
 And she that hath the sweetest voice, 
 TeU her I wUl not change my choice 
 Yet still, methinks, I see her frown ! 
 Ye pretty wantons, warble. 
 
78 THOMAS HEYWOOD 
 
 Oh, fly, make haste ! see, see, she falls 
 Into a pretty slumber. 
 
 Sing round about her rosy bed, 
 
 That, waking, she may wonder. 
 
 Say to her, 'tis her lover true 
 
 That sendeth love to you, to you ; 
 
 And when you hear her kind reply, 
 Return with pleasant warblings. 
 
PATRICK GARY 
 
 (middle of seventeenth century) 
 
 HYMN* 
 
 Whilst I beheld the neck of the dove, 
 I spied and read these words, 
 " This pretty dye 
 Which takes your eye 
 Is not at all the bird's. 
 The dusky raven might 
 Have with these colours pleased your sight, 
 Had God but chose so to ordain above." 
 This label wore the dove. 
 
 Whilst I admired the nightingale, 
 
 These notes she warbled o'er : — 
 " No melody indeed have I, 
 Admire me then no more ! 
 God has it in his choice 
 To give the owl or me this voice ; 
 'Tis He, 'tis He, that makes me tell my tale." 
 Thus sang the nightingale. 
 
 I met and praised the fragrant rose, 
 Blushing, thus answered she : — 
 " The praise you gave, 
 The scent I have, 
 Do not belong to me ; 
 This harmless odour, none 
 But only God indeed does own : 
 To be his keepers, my poor leaves He chose." 
 And thus replied the rose. 
 79 
 
8o PATRICK GARY 
 
 All creatures, then, confess to God 
 That th' owe Him all, but I. 
 My senses find 
 True, that my mind 
 Would still, oft does, deny. 
 Hence pride ! out of my soul, 
 Or it thou shalt no more control. 
 I'll learn this lesson, and escape the rod. 
 I, too, have all from God. 
 
RICHARD CRASHAW 
 (1612 ?-i649) 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 MUSIC'S DUEL* 
 
 Now westward Sol has spent the richest beams 
 Of noon's high glory, when hard by the streams 
 Of Tiber, on the scene of a green flat. 
 Under protection of an oak, there sat 
 A sweet lute's-master : in whose gentle airs 
 He lost the day's heat and his own hot cares. 
 
 Close in the covert of the leaves there stood 
 
 A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood :- 
 
 The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree, 
 
 Their Muse, their Syren, harmless Syren she — 
 
 There stood she list'ning, and did entertain 
 
 The music's soft report, and mould the same 
 
 In her own murmurs, that, whatever mood 
 
 His curious fingers lent, her voice made good. 
 
 The man perceived his rival, and her art ; 
 
 Disposed to give the light-foot lady sport, 
 
 Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come 
 
 Informs it, in a sweet preeludium 
 
 Of closer strains ; and ere the war begin, 
 
 He light skirmishes on every string. 
 
 Charged with a flying touch : and straightway she 
 
 Carves out her dainty voice as readily 
 
 Into a thousand, sweet, distinguished tones ; 
 
 And reckons up in soft divisions 
 
 Quick volumes of wild notes, to let him know 
 
 By that shrill taste she could do something too. 
 
 His nimble hand's instinct then taught each string 
 A cap'ring cheerfulness ; and made them sing 
 6 81 
 
5!2 RICHARD CRASHAW 
 
 To their own dance ; now negligently rash 
 He throws his arm and with a long-drawn dash 
 Blends all together, then distinctly trips 
 From this to that, then, quick returning, skips 
 And snatches this again, and pauses there. 
 She measures every measure, everywhere 
 Meets art with art ; sometimes as if in doubt — 
 Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out — 
 Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note 
 Through the sleek passage of her open throat. 
 clear unwrinkled song ; then doth she point it 
 With tender accents, and severely joint it 
 By short diminutives, that, being reared 
 In contraverting warbles evenly shared 
 With her sweet self she wrangles ; he, amazed 
 That from so small a channel should be raised 
 The torrent of a voice, whose melody 
 Could melt into such sweet variety. 
 Strains higher yet, that, tickled with rare art, 
 The tattling strings — each breathing in his part — 
 Most kindly do fall out ; the grumbling bass 
 In surly groans disdains the treble's grace ; 
 The high-perched treble chirps at this and chides 
 Until his finger — moderator — hides 
 And .closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all. 
 Hoarse, shrill, at once : as when the trumpets call 
 Hot Mars to th' harvest of Death's field, and woo 
 Men's hearts into their hands ; this lesson, too, 
 She gives him back, her supple breast thrills out 
 Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt 
 Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill 
 And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill, 
 The pliant series of her slippery song ; 
 
RICHARD CRASHAW 83 
 
 Then starts she suddenly into a throng 
 
 Of short, thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float 
 
 And roll themselves over her lubric throat 
 
 In panting murmurs, 'stilled out of her breast 
 
 That ever bubbling spring, the sugared nest 
 
 Of her delicious soul, that there does lie 
 
 Bathing in streams of liquid melody — 
 
 Music's best seed-plot ; where in ripened ears 
 
 A golden-headed harvest fairly rears 
 
 His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath, 
 
 Which there reciprocally laboureth. 
 
 In that sweet soil it seems a holy Quire 
 
 Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre; 
 
 Whose silver roof rings to the sprightly notes 
 
 Of sweet-lipped Angel-imps, that swill their throats 
 
 In cream of morning Helicon j and then 
 
 Prefers soft anthems to the ears of men, 
 
 To woo them from their beds, still murmuring 
 
 That men can sleep while they their matins sing. 
 
 Most divine service ! whose so early lay, 
 
 Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day. 
 
 There might you hear her kindle her soft voice 
 
 In the close murmur of a sparkling noise 
 
 And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song ; 
 
 StUl keeping in the forward stream, so long, 
 
 Till a sweet whirlwind striving to get out. 
 
 Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about, 
 
 And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast ; 
 
 TiU the fledged notes at length forsake their nest. 
 
 Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky, 
 
 Winged with their own wild echoes, prattling fly. 
 
 She opes the flood-gate and lets loose a tide 
 
 Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth lie 
 
84 RICHARD CRASHAW 
 
 On the waved back of every swelling strain 
 
 Rising and falling in a pompous train ; 
 
 And whUe she thus discharges a shrill peal 
 
 Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal 
 
 With the cool epode of a graver note, 
 
 Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat 
 
 Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird ; 
 
 Her little soul is ravished, and so poured 
 
 Into loose ecstasies that she is placed 
 
 Above herself — music's enthusiast ! 
 
 Shame now and anger mixed a double stain 
 
 In the musician's face : yet once again, 
 
 Mistress, I come ! Now reach a strain, my lute, 
 
 Above her mock, or be for ever mute ; 
 
 Or tune a song of victory to me. 
 
 Or to thyself sing thine own obsequy ! 
 
 So said, his hand sprightly as fire he flings, 
 
 And with a quivering coyness tastes the strings : 
 
 The sweet lipped sisters musically frighted 
 
 Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted : 
 
 Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs 
 
 Are fanned and frizzled in the wanton airs 
 
 Of his own breath, which, married to his lyre, 
 
 Doth tune the spheres and make Heaven's self look higher ; 
 
 From this to that, from that to this, he flies, 
 
 Feels music's pulse in all her arteries 
 
 Caught in a net which there ApoUo spreads ; 
 
 His fingers struggle with the vocal threads. 
 
 Following those little rills, he sinks into 
 
 A sea of Helicon ; his hand does go 
 
 Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop. 
 
 Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup ; 
 
RICHARD CRASHAW 85 
 
 The humorous strings expound his learned touch 
 
 By various glosses, now they seem to grutch 
 
 And murmur in a buzzing din, then jingle 
 
 In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single ; 
 
 Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke, 
 
 Gives life to some new grace : thus doth h' invoke 
 
 Sweetness by all her names ; thus bravely thus — • 
 
 Fraught with a fury so harmonious — 
 
 The lute's light genius now doth proudly rise, 
 
 Heaved on the surges of swoU'n rhapsodies, 
 
 Whose flourish, meteor-like, doth curl the air 
 
 With flash of high-born fancies, here and there 
 
 Dancing in lofty measures, and anon 
 
 Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone. 
 
 Whose trembling murmurs, melting in wild airs. 
 
 Runs to and fro, complaining his sweet cares, 
 
 Because those precious mysteries do dwell 
 
 In music's ravished soul he dare not tell. 
 
 But whisper to the world : thus do they vary 
 
 Each string his note, as if they meant to carry 
 
 Their master's blest soul, snatched out at his ears 
 
 By a strong ecstasy, through all the spheres 
 
 Of music's Heaven ; and seat it there on high 
 
 In th' Empyrceum of pure harmony. 
 
 At length — after so long, so loud a strife. 
 
 Of all the strings, still breathing the best life 
 
 Of blest variety, attending on 
 
 His fingers' fairest revolution. 
 
 In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall — 
 
 A fuU-mouthed diapason swaUows all. 
 
 This done, he lists what she would say to this ; 
 And she, although her breath's late exercise 
 
86 RICHARD CRASHAW 
 
 Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat, 
 
 Yet summons aU her sweet powers for a note. 
 
 Alas ! in vain ! for while, sweet soul, she tries 
 
 To measure all those wild diversities 
 
 Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one 
 
 Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone. 
 
 She fails, and failing, grieves ; and grieving, dies ; 
 
 She dies, and leaves her life, the victor's prize, 
 
 Falling upon his lute. 0, fit to have — 
 
 That lived so sweetly — dead, so sweet a grave. 
 
JOHN HALL OF DURHAM 
 (1627-1656) 
 
 XXXV 
 
 A PASTORAL HYMN* 
 
 Happy choristers of air, 
 Who by your nimble flight draw near 
 
 His throne, whose wondrous story. 
 
 And unconfined glory 
 Your notes still carol, whom your sound. 
 And whom your plumy pipes rebound. 
 
 Yet do the lazy snails no less 
 The greatness of our Lord confess, 
 
 And those whom weight hath chained. 
 And to the earth restrained, 
 Their ruder voices do as well. 
 Yes, and the speechless fishes tell. 
 
 Great Lord, from whom each tree receives, 
 Then pays again, as rent, his leaves ; 
 
 Thou dost in purple set 
 
 The rose and violet, 
 And giv'st the sickly lily white ; 
 Yet in them all Thy name dost write. 
 
 87 
 
ROBERT HERRICK 
 (1591-1674) 
 
 TO ROBIN REDBREAST* 
 
 Led out for dead, let thy last kindness be 
 With leaves and moss-work for to cover me : 
 And while the wood-nymphs my cold corse inter. 
 Sing thou my dirge, sweet warbling chorister ; 
 For epitaph in foliage next write this — 
 Here, here the tomb of Robin Herrick is. 
 
 88 
 
ROBERT HERRICK 89 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 CHARON AND PHILOMEL* 
 
 A DIALOGUE SUNG 
 
 Ph. Charon ! O gentle Charon ! let me woo thee 
 By tears and pity now to come unto me. 
 
 Ch. What voice so sweet and charming do I hear ? 
 
 Say what thou art. Ph. I prithee first draw near. 
 
 Ch. A sound I hear, but nothing yet can see ; 
 
 Speak, where thou art. Ph. Charon, pity me ! 
 I am a bird, and though no name I teU, 
 My warbling note wUl say I'm Philomel. 
 
 Ch. What's that to me ? I waft nor fish nor fowls, 
 Nor beasts, fond thing, but only human souls. 
 
 Ph. Alas for me ! Ch. Shame on thy witching note 
 That made me thus hoist sail and bring my boat : 
 But I'll return ; what mischief brought thee hither ? 
 
 Ph . A deal of love and much, much grief together. 
 
 Ch. What's thy request ? Ph. That since she's now 
 beneath 
 Who fed my life, I'll follow her in death. 
 
 Ch. And is that all ? I'm gone. Ph. By love I pray 
 thee. 
 
 Ch. Talk not of love ; aU pray, but few souls pay me. 
 
 Ph. I'll give thee vows and tears. Ch. Can tears 
 pay scores 
 For mending sails, for patching boat and oars ? 
 
 Ph. I'll beg a penny, or I'll sing so long 
 
 Till thou shalt say I've paid thee with a song. 
 
 Ch. Why then, begin ; and all the whUe we make 
 Our slothful passage o'er the Stygian lake, 
 Thou and I'll sing to make these dull shades merry, 
 Who else with tears would doubtless drown my ferry. 
 
90 ROBERT HERRICK 
 
 XXXVI 11 
 
 TO THE LARK* 
 
 Good speed, for I this day 
 Betimes my matins say : 
 Because I do 
 Begin to woo, 
 Sweet-singing lark. 
 Be thou the clerk, 
 And know thy when 
 To say. Amen. 
 And if I prove 
 Bless'd in my love. 
 Then shalt thou be 
 High-priest to me, 
 At my return. 
 To incense burn ; 
 And so to solemnise 
 Love's and my sacrifice. 
 
JOHN MILTON 
 (1608-1674) 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 TO THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 
 Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, 
 Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fiU, 
 While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, 
 Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 
 First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, 
 Portend success in love (') ; O, if Jove's will 
 Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, 
 Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
 Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh ; 
 As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
 For my relief, yet hadst no reason why : 
 Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate. 
 Both them I serve, and of their train am I. 
 
 9I 
 
92 JOHN; MILTON 
 
 XL 
 
 THE CREATION OF BIRDS* 
 
 There the eagle and the stork 
 On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build : 
 Part loosely wing the region, part more wise 
 In common ranged in figure, wedge their way, 
 Intelligent of seasons, and set forth 
 Their aery caravan, high over seas 
 Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing 
 Easing their flight ; so steers the prudent crane 
 Her annual voyage, borne on winds ; the air 
 Floats, as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes. (') 
 From branch to branch the smaller birds with song 
 Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings 
 TiU even ; nor then the solemn nightingale 
 Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her soft lays ; 
 Others on silver lakes and rivers bathed 
 Their downy breast ; the swan with arched neck 
 Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows 
 Her state with oary feet ; yet oft they quit 
 The dank, and rising on stiff pennons tower 
 The mid aerial sky. Others on ground 
 Walked firm : the crested cock whose clarion sounds 
 The silent hours (') ; and the other, whose gay train 
 Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue 
 Of rainbows and starry eyes. 
 
ANDREW MARVELL 
 (1620-1678) 
 
 XLI 
 
 THE FOREST-NATURALIST* 
 Dark all without it knits : within 
 It opens passable- and thin ; 
 And in as loose an order grows 
 As the Corinthian porticoes. 
 The arching boughs unite between 
 The columns of the temple green ; 
 And underneath the winged Quires ' 
 Echo about their tuned fires. 
 The nightingale does here make choice 
 To sing the trials of her voice ; 
 Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns 
 With music high the squatted thorns. 
 But highest oaks stoop down to hear 
 And listening elders prick the ear. 
 The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws 
 Within the skin its shrunken claws. 
 But I have for my music found 
 A sadder, yet more pleasing sound ; 
 The stock-doves,(') whose. fair necks are graced 
 With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste ; 
 Yet always, for some cause unknown, 
 Sad pair, unto the elms they moan. 
 O why should such a couple mourn. 
 That in so equal flames do burn ! 
 Then, as I careless on the bed 
 Of gelid strawberries do tread, 
 And through the hazels thick espy 
 The hatching throstle's shining eye, 
 The heron from the ash's top 
 The eldest of its young lets drop, 
 93 
 
94 
 
 ANDREW MARVELL 
 
 As if it stork-like did pretend 
 
 That tribute to its lord to send. 
 
 But most the hewel's (') wonders are, 
 
 Who here has the holt-felster's (') care. 
 
 He walks still upright from the root, 
 
 Measuring the timber with his foot, 
 
 And all the way, to keep it clean. 
 
 Doth from the bark the wood-moths glean. 
 
 He, with his beak examines well 
 
 Which fit to stand, and which to fell. 
 
 The good he numbers up, and hacks, 
 
 As if he marked them with his axe. 
 
 But where he, tinkling with hjs beak, 
 
 Does find the hollow oak to speak, 
 
 That for his building he designs. 
 
 And through the tainted side he mines. 
 
 Who could have thought the tallest oak 
 
 Should fall by such a feeble stroke f 
 
 Nor would it, had the tree not fed 
 
 A traitor-worm within it bred. 
 
 And yet that worm triumphs not long. 
 
 But serves to feed the hewel's young. 
 
 Whiles the oak seems to fall content, 
 
 Viewing the treason's punishment. 
 
 Thus I, easy philosopher, 
 
 Among the birds and trees confer. 
 
 And little now to make me wants 
 
 Or of the fowls, or of the plants. 
 
 Already I begin to call 
 
 In their most learned original ; 
 
 And where I language want, my signs 
 
 The bird upon the bough divines. 
 
HENRY VAUGHAN, Silurist 
 (1621-1695) 
 
 XLII 
 
 COCK-CROWING * 
 
 Father of lights ! What sunny seed, 
 What glance of day hast thou confined 
 Into this bird ? To all the breed 
 This busy ray thou hast assigned ; 
 
 Their magnetism works all night, 
 And dreams of Paradise and light. 
 
 Their eyes watch for the morning-hue, 
 
 Their little grain, expelling night. 
 
 So shines and sings, as if it knew 
 
 The path unto the house of light. 
 
 It seems their candle, howe'er done, 
 Was tined (') and lighted at the sun. 
 
 If joys, and hopes, and earnest throes. 
 And hearts, whose pulse beats still for light 
 Are given to birds ; who, but thee, knows 
 A love-sick soul's exalted flight ? 
 
 Can souls be tracked by any eye 
 
 But his, who gave them wings to fly ? 
 
 95 
 
96 HENRY VAUGHAN 
 
 XLIII 
 
 THE BIRD * 
 
 Hither thou com'st : the busy wind all night 
 
 Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing 
 
 Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm 
 
 (For which course man seems much the fitter born,) 
 
 Rain'd on thy bed 
 
 And harmless head. 
 
 And now as fresh and cheerful as the light 
 
 Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing 
 
 Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm 
 
 Curb'd them, and clothed thee well and warm. 
 All things that be praise him ; and had 
 Their lesson taught them, when first made. 
 
 So hUls and valleys into singing break, 
 
 And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue, 
 
 While active winds and streams both run and speak, 
 
 Yet stones are deep in admiration. 
 
 Thus Praise and Prayer here beneath the Sun 
 Make lesser mornings, when the great are done. 
 
 For each inclosed Spirit is a star 
 
 Inlightning his own little sphere. 
 Whose light, though fetcht and borrowed from afar. 
 
 Both mornings makes, and evenings there. 
 
ABRAHAM COWLEY 
 (1618-1677) 
 
 XLIV 
 
 THE SWALLOW* 
 
 Foolish prater, what dost thou 
 So early at my window do 
 With thy tuneless serenade ? 
 Well 't had been had Tereus made 
 Thee as dumb as Philomel ; 
 There his knife had done but well. 
 In thy undiscover'd nest 
 Thou dost all the winter rest, 
 And dreamest o'er thy summer joys 
 Free from the stormy season's noise : 
 Free from th' ill thou'st done to me ; 
 Who disturbs or seeks out thee ? 
 Had'st thou aU the charming notes 
 Of the wood's poetic throats. 
 All thy arts could never pay 
 What thou'st ta'en from me away. 
 Cruel bird, thou'st ta'en away 
 A dream out of my arms to-day ; 
 A dream that ne'er must equall'd be 
 By all that waking eyes may see. 
 Thou this damage to repair 
 Nothing half so sweet or fair. 
 Nothing half so good, canst bring, 
 Tho' men say, thou bring'st the Spring. 
 
 97 
 
ANONYMOUS 
 (circa 1250) 
 
 XLV 
 
 CUCKOO SONG 
 
 SuMER is icumen in, 
 
 Lhude sing cuccu ! 
 Groweth sed, and bloweth. med, 
 
 And springth the wude nu— 
 Sing cuecu ! 
 
 Awe bleteth after lomb, 
 Lhouth after calve cu ; 
 
 Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth, 
 Murie sing cuccu ! 
 
 Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu ! 
 
 Ne swike thu naver nu ; 
 Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu, 
 
 Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu ! 
 
 98 
 
ANONYMOUS 
 
 XLVI 
 
 THE ARMONY OF BYRDES * 
 
 I 
 
 When Dame Flora 
 
 In die aurora 
 Had covered the meadows with flowers, 
 And all the field 
 Was over distilled 
 
 With lusty Aprell showers ; 
 
 2 
 
 For my disport, 
 
 Me to comfort, 
 When the day began to spring, 
 Forth I went 
 With a good intent, • 
 
 To hear the Byrdes sing. 
 
 3 
 I was not past 
 
 Not a stone's cast 
 So nigh as I could deem ; 
 But I did see 
 A goodly tree 
 
 Within an arbour green. 
 
 4 
 Whereon did light 
 
 Byrdes as thick 
 As stars in the sky ; 
 Praising our Lord, 
 Without discord, 
 
 With goodly armony. 
 99 
 
100 ANONYMOUS 
 
 S 
 Then sang the avis 
 
 Called the mavis 
 The treble in ellamy, 
 That from the ground 
 Her notes around 
 
 Were heard into the sky. 
 
 6 
 
 Then all the rest 
 
 At her request, 
 Both mean, bass, and tenor. 
 With her did respond 
 This glorious sound : 
 
 Te dominum confitemur. 
 
 7 
 Then said the nightingale, 
 
 To make short tale. 
 For words I do refuse. 
 Because my delight 
 Both day and night 
 
 Is singing for to use. 
 
 8 
 
 Then the Byrdes all 
 
 Domesticall, 
 All at once did cry. 
 For mankind's sake. 
 Both early and late 
 
 We be all ready to die. 
 
ANONYMOUS loi 
 
 . 9 
 
 Then the red brest 
 
 His tunes redrest, 
 And said now will I hold 
 With the church, for there 
 Out of the air 
 
 I keep me from the cold. 
 
 10 
 
 Then the eagle spake, 
 
 Ye know my estate. 
 That I am lord and king ; 
 Therefore will I 
 To the Father only 
 
 Give laud and praising. 
 
 II 
 
 Then said the dove, 
 
 Scripture doth prove 
 That from the deity 
 The holy spirit 
 In Christ did light 
 
 In likeness of me. 
 
 12 
 
 Then said the wren, 
 
 I am called the hen 
 Of our Lady most comely ; 
 Then of her sun 
 My notes shall run 
 
 For the love of that Lady. 
 
102 ANONYMOUS 
 
 13 
 The swallows sang sweet, 
 
 To man we be meet ; 
 For with him we do build, 
 Like as from above 
 God for mannes love 
 
 Was born of a maiden mild. 
 
 H 
 
 Then in prostration 
 
 They made oration 
 To Christ that died upon the rood ; 
 To have mercy from those 
 For whom he chose 
 
 To shed his precious blood. 
 
 IS 
 With supplication 
 
 They made intercession. 
 And sang Miserere nostri ; 
 Rehearsing this text 
 In English next : 
 
 Lord on us have mercy ! 
 
ANONYMOUS 103 
 
 XLVII 
 
 THE TWA CORBIES {Scottish Version) 
 
 As I was walking all alane 
 
 I heard twa corbies making a mane : 
 
 The tane unto the tither did say, 
 
 " Whar sail we gang and dine the day ? " 
 
 -In behint yon auld fail (') dyke 
 
 I wot there lies a new-slain knight ; 
 And naebody kens that he lies there 
 But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair. 
 
 " His hound is to the hunting gane. 
 His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame. 
 His lady's ta'en anither mate. 
 So we may mak our dinner sweet. 
 
 " Ye'U sit on his white hause (^) bane. 
 And I'U pike out his bonny blue e'en : 
 Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair 
 We'll theek (') our nest when it grows bare. 
 
 " Mony a one for him maks mane, 
 But nane sail ken whar he is gane : 
 O'er his white banes, when they are bare, 
 The wind sail blaw for evermair." 
 
104 ANONYMOUS 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 THE LOVER TO HIS LOVE HA VING FORSAKEN 
 HIM AND BETAKEN HERSELF TO 
 ANOTHER* 
 
 The bird that sometime built within my breast, 
 And there as then chief succour did receive, 
 Hath now elsewhere built her another nest, 
 And of the old hath taken quite her leave. 
 To you mine oste that harbour mine old guest, 
 Of such a one, as I can now conceive, 
 Sith that in change her choice doth chief consist. 
 The hawke may check, that now comes fair to fist. 
 
ANONYMOUS 105 
 
 XLIX 
 
 PIPINGS * 
 
 Surcharged with discontent, 
 To Sylvane's bower I went 
 To ease my heavy grief-oppressed heart, 
 
 And try what comfort winged creatures 
 
 Could yield unto my inward troubled smart. 
 
 By modulating their delightful measures 
 
 To my ears pleasing ever. 
 
 Of strains so sweet, sweet birds deprive us never ! 
 
 The thrush- did pipe full clear. 
 
 And eke with merry cheer 
 The linnet lifted up his pleasant voice. 
 
 The goldfinch chirped and the pie did chatter, 
 The blackbird whistled and bade me rejoice. 
 The stockdove murmured with a solemn flatter. 
 
 The little daw, ka-ka, he cried ; 
 
 The hic-quail (') he beside 
 Tickled his part in parti-coloured coat. 
 The jay did blow his hautboy gallantly. 
 
 The wren did treble many a pretty note ; 
 The woodpecker did hammer melody ; 
 The kite,(*) tiw-whiw, fuU oft 
 Cried, soaring up aloft. 
 And down again returned presently. 
 To whom the herald of cornutps sang cuckoo 
 Ever, whilst poor Margery cried : Who 
 Did ring night's 'larum bell ? 
 Withal all did do well. 
 might I hear them ever ! 
 Of strains so sweet, sweet birds deprive us never ! 
 
io6 ANONYMOUS 
 
 Then Hesperus on high. 
 Brought cloudy night in sky, 
 When lo, the thicket-keeping company 
 
 Of feathered singers left their madrigals, 
 Sonnets and elegies, and presently 
 
 Shut them within their mossy severals. (') 
 And I came home and vowed to love them ever. 
 Of strains so sweet, sweet birds deprive us never ! 
 
ANONYMOUS 107 
 
 L 
 
 SWEET SUFFOLK OWL* 
 
 Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight, 
 With feathers like a lady bright, 
 Thou singest alone, sitting by night, 
 
 Te whit, te whoo, te whit, to whit. 
 Thy note, that forth so freely rolls. 
 With shrill command the mouse controls, 
 And sings a dirge for dying souls, 
 
 Te whit, te whoo, te whit, to whit. 
 
io8 ANONYMOUS 
 
 LI 
 
 THE BIRD THAT BEARS THE BELL* 
 
 The nightingale, the organ of delight, 
 
 The nimble lark, the blackbird, and the thrush, 
 And all the pretty quiristers of flight. 
 
 That chant their music notes on every bush. 
 Let them no more contend who shall excel ; 
 The cuckoo is the bird that bears the bell. 
 
ANONYMOUS 109 
 
 LII 
 
 COME, BLESSED BIRD ... * 
 
 Come, blessed bird, and with thy sugared relish 
 
 Help our declining choir now to embellish, 
 
 For Bonny-b'oots (') that so aloft could fetch it, 
 
 O he is dead, and none of us can reach it. 
 
 Then tune to us, sweet bird, thy shrUl recorder,(*) 
 
 Begin, and we will follow thee in order. 
 
 Elpin and I and Dorus 
 Will serve for fault of better in the chorus. 
 
 Then sang the wood-born minstrel of Diana : 
 Long live fair Oriana ! 
 
110 ANONYMOUS 
 
 SING, MERRY BIRDS ... * 
 
 Sing, merry birds, your cheerful notes, 
 For Procne you have seen 
 Is come from Summer's queen, 
 tune your throats. 
 When Procne comes we then are warm, 
 Forgetting all cold Winter's harm. 
 Now may we perch on branches green, 
 And singing sit and not be seen. 
 
ANONYMOUS iii 
 
 PHILIP MY SPARROW* 
 
 Of all the birds that I do know, 
 
 Philip my sparrow hath no peer ; 
 For sit she high, or sit she low. 
 
 Be she far off, or be she near. 
 There is no bird so fair, so fine, 
 
 Nor yet so fresh as this of mine ; 
 For when she once hath felt a fit, 
 
 Philip will cry still : yet, yet, yet. 
 
 Come in a morning merrily 
 
 When Philip hath been lately fed ; 
 Or on an evening soberly 
 
 When Philip list to go to bed ; 
 It is a heaven to hear my Phipp, 
 
 How she can chirp with merry lip, 
 For when she once hath felt a fit, 
 
 Philip will cry still : yet, yet, yet. 
 
 She never wanders far abroad. 
 
 But is at home when I do call. 
 If I command she lays on load 
 
 With lips, with teeth, with tongue and all. 
 She chants, she chirps, she makes such cheer, 
 
 That I believe she hath no peer. 
 For when she once hath felt the fit, 
 
 Philip will cry still : yet, yet, yet. 
 
 And yet besides all this good sport 
 
 My Philip can both sing and dance, 
 
112 ANONYMOUS 
 
 With new found toys of sundry sort 
 
 My Philip can both prick and prance. 
 And if you say but : fend cut, Phipp ! 
 
 Lord, how the peat (') will turn and skip ! 
 For when she once hath felt the fit, 
 ~ Philip will cry still : yet, yet, yet. 
 
 And to tell truth he were to blame. 
 
 Having so fine a bird as she. 
 To make him all this goodly game 
 
 Without suspect or jealousy ; 
 He were a churl and knew no good, 
 
 Would see her faint for lack of food. 
 For when she once hath felt the fit, 
 
 Philip will cry still : yet, yet, yet. 
 
ANONYMOUS 113 
 
 LV 
 
 NURSERY RHYME 
 
 Jenny Wren fell sick ; 
 
 Upon a merry time, 
 In came Robin Redbreast, 
 
 And brought her sops and wine. 
 
 Eat well of the sop, Jenny, 
 
 Drink well of the wine ; 
 Thank you, Robin, kindly. 
 
 You shall be mine. 
 
 Jenny she got well, 
 
 And stood upon her feet. 
 And told Robin plainly 
 
 She loved him not a bit. 
 
 Robin, being angry, 
 
 Hopp'd on a twig. 
 Saying, Out upon you, 
 
 Fye upon you, bold-faced jig ! 
 
114 ANONYMOUS 
 
 LVI 
 
 THE SKYLARK* 
 
 The pretty lark, climbing the welkin clear, 
 
 Cheers with a peer, " Come here, come near, my dear," 
 
 Then, flitting thence, seeming his fall to rue, 
 
 " Adieu," he saith, " adieu, dear, dear, adieu." 
 
ANONYMOUS 115 
 
 LVII 
 
 THE LARK * 
 
 Swift through the yielding air I glide, 
 Wliile nights shall be shades, I abide, 
 Yet in my flight (though ne'er so fast) 
 I tune and time the wild wind's blast ; 
 And e'er the sun be come about. 
 Teach the young lark his lesson out ; 
 Who, early as the day is born. 
 Sings his shrill anthem to the rising morn. 
 
 Let never mortal lose the pains 
 
 To imitate my airy strains. 
 
 Whose pitch, too high for human ears. 
 
 Was set me by the tuneful spheres. 
 
 I carol to the Fairies' King, 
 
 Wake him a-mornings when I sing, 
 
 And when the sun stoops to the deep, 
 
 Rock him again, and his fair Queen to sleep. 
 
ii6 ANONYMOUS 
 
 LVIII 
 
 CUCKOO LORE* 
 
 In April 
 
 He shows his bill. 
 
 In May- 
 He sings all day. 
 
 In June 
 
 He changes his tune. 
 
 In July 
 
 He says good-bye. 
 In August 
 
 Go he must. 
 
FROM 
 
 THE RESTORATION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
SAMUEL BUTLER 
 (i 612-1680) 
 
 LIX 
 
 THE BARN OWL * 
 
 While moonlight, silvering all the walls, 
 Through every mouldering crevice falls, 
 Tipping with white his powdery plume. 
 As shades or shifts the changing gloom ; 
 The Owl that, watching in the barn, 
 Sees the mouse creeping in the corn. 
 Sits still and shuts his round blue eyes 
 As if he slept, — until he spies 
 The little beast within his stretch — 
 Then starts, — and seizes on the wretch ! 
 
 119 
 
JOHN DRYDEN 
 (i 631-1700) 
 
 LX 
 
 THE SWALLOW* 
 Departure 
 
 The swallow, privileged above the rest 
 
 Of all the birds as man's familiar guest, 
 
 Pursues the sun in summer, brisk and bold, 
 
 But wisely shuns the persecuting cold ; 
 
 Is well to chancels and to chimneys known, 
 
 Though 'tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone. 
 
 From hence she has been held of heavenly line, 
 
 Endued with particles of soul divine : 
 
 This merry chorister had long possessed 
 
 Her summer seat, and feathered well her nest. 
 
 Tin frowning skies began to change their cheer, 
 
 And time turned up the wrong side of the year ; 
 
 The shedding trees began the ground to strow 
 
 With yeUow leaves, and bitter blast to blow ; 
 
 Sad auguries of winter thence she drew. 
 
 Which by instinct or prophecy she knew ; 
 
 When prudence warned her to remove betimes. 
 
 And seek a better heaven and warmer climes. 
 
 Her sons were summoned on a steeple's height. 
 
 And, called in common council, vote a flight. 
 
 The day was named, the next that should be fair ; 
 
 All to the general rendezvous repair ; 
 
 They try their fluttering wings, and trust themselves in air. 
 
 Return 
 
 Who but the swallow now triumphs alone ? 
 The canopy of heaven is all her own : 
 
JOHN DRYDEN 121 
 
 Her youthful offspring to their haunts repair, 
 And glide along in glades, and skim in air, 
 And dip for insects in the purling springs, 
 And stoop on rivers, to refresh their wings. 
 Their mothers think a fair provision made. 
 That every son can live upon his trade : 
 And, now the careful charge is off their hands. 
 Look out for husbands, and new nuptial bands : 
 The youthful widow longs to be supplied 5 
 But first the lover is by lawyers tied 
 To settle jointure-chimneys on the bride. 
 So thick they couple, in so short a space, 
 That Martin's marriage-offerings rise apace. 
 Their ancient houses, running to decay, 
 . Are furbished up, and cemented with clay ; 
 They teem already ; stores of eggs are laid, 
 And brooding mothers call Lucina's aid. 
 
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH 
 (1666 l-ijzG) 
 
 LXI 
 
 LEARNED WOMEN* 
 
 Once on a time, a nightingale 
 
 To changes prone ; 
 Unconstant, fickle, whimsical, 
 
 (A female one), 
 Who sung like others of her kind, 
 Hearing a well-taught linnet's airs, 
 Had other matters in her mind. 
 To imitate him she prepares. 
 
 Her fancy straight was on the wing : 
 
 " I fly," quoth she, 
 
 " As well as he ; 
 
 I don't know why 
 
 I should not try 
 As well as he to sing." 
 
 From that day forth she changed her note. 
 She spoiled her voice, she strained her throat ; 
 She did, as learned women do. 
 
 Till everything 
 
 That heard her sing. 
 Would run away from her — as I from you. 
 
MATTHEW GREEN 
 (1696-1737) 
 
 LXII 
 
 THE SPARROW AND DIAMOND* 
 
 I LATELY saw, what now I sing, 
 Fair Lucia's hand display'd ; 
 The finger grac'd a diamond ring, 
 On that a sparrow play'd. 
 
 The feather'd play-thing she caressed, 
 She stroked its head and wings ; 
 
 And while it nestled on her breast. 
 She lisped the dearest things. 
 
 With chisell'd bill a spark ill-set 
 
 He loosened from the rest. 
 And swallowed down to grind his meat, 
 
 The easier to digest. 
 
 She seized his bill with wild affright, 
 
 Her diamond to descry : 
 'Twas gone ! she sickened at the sight. 
 
 Moaning her bird would die. 
 
 The tongue-tied knocker none might use, 
 The curtains none undraw. 
 
 The footmen went without their shoes. 
 The street was laid with straw. 
 
 The doctor used his oily art 
 
 Of strong emetic kind, 
 Th' apothecary played his part. 
 
 And engineered behind. 
 1Z3 
 
124 MATTHEW GREEN 
 
 When physic ceased to spend its store, 
 To bring away the stone, 
 
 Dicky, like people given o'er. 
 Picks up when let alone. 
 
 His eyes dispelled their sickly dews, 
 He pecked behind his wing, 
 
 Lucia, recovering at the news, 
 Relapses for the ring. 
 
 Meanwhile within her beauteous breast 
 Two different passions strove ; 
 
 When av'rice ended the contest. 
 And triumphed over love. 
 
 Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing. 
 Thy pains the sex display. 
 
 Who, only to repair a ring. 
 Could take thy life away. 
 
 Drive av'rice from your hearts, ye fair, 
 Monster of foulest mien : 
 
 Ye would not let it harbour there, 
 Could but its form be seen. 
 
 It made a virgin put on guile. 
 
 Truth's image break her word, 
 
 A Lucia's face forbear to smile, 
 A Venus kill her bird. 
 
ALEXANDER POPE 
 (1688-1744) 
 
 Lxm 
 
 FROM "WINDSOR FOREST" 
 
 See ! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, 
 And mounts exulting on triumphant wings ; 
 Short in his joy, he feels the fiery wound, 
 Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. 
 Ah ! what avail his glossy, varying dyes, 
 His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes, 
 The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, 
 His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold ? 
 
 With slaughtering guns the unwearied fowler roves, 
 When frosts have whitened all the naked groves ; 
 Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade. 
 And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade. 
 He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye : 
 Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky. 
 Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath. 
 The clamorous lapwings feel the leaden death : 
 Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare. 
 They fall, and leave their little lives in air. 
 
 125 
 
126 ALEXANDER POPE 
 
 LXIV 
 
 FROM "ESSAY ON MAN"* 
 
 Has God, thou fool ! work'd solely for thy good, 
 Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food ? 
 
 Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings ? 
 Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. 
 
 Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat ? 
 Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. 
 
 Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain ? 
 The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. 
 
JAMES THOMSON 
 (1 700-1 748) 
 
 THE BIRD NATION* 
 
 As rising from the vegetable world 
 My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, 
 My panting Muse ; and hark, how loud the woods 
 Invite you forth in all your gayest trim. 
 Lend me your song, ye nightingales ! oh, pour 
 The mazy-running soul of melody 
 Into my varied verse ! while I deduce. 
 From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings. 
 The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme 
 Unknown to fame, the Passion of the groves. 
 When first the soul of love is sent abroad. 
 Warm through the vital air, and on the heart 
 Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin 
 In gaUant thought to plume the painted wing ; 
 And try again the long-forgotten strain. 
 At first faint-warbled. Up-springs the lark, 
 ShrUl-voic'd and loud, the messenger of morn ; 
 Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings 
 Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts 
 Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse 
 Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush 
 Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads 
 Of the coy quiristers that lodge within. 
 Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush 
 And wood-lark, o'er the kind contending throng 
 Superior heard, run through the sweetest length 
 Of notes,; when listening Philomela deigns 
 To let them joy, and purposes, in thought 
 Elate, to make her night excel their day. 
 127 
 
128 JAMES THOMSON 
 
 The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake ; 
 The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove : 
 Nor are the linnets o'er the flowering furze 
 Pour'd out profusely, silent. Join'd to these, 
 Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade 
 Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix 
 Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, 
 And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, 
 Aid the full concert : while the stock-dove breathes 
 A melancholy murmur through the whole. 
 
 'Tis love creates their melody, and all 
 This waste of music is the voice of love ; 
 That ev'n to birds and beasts, the tender arts 
 Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind 
 Try every winning way inventive love 
 Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates 
 Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around. 
 With distant awe, in airy rings they rove. 
 Endeavouring by a thousand tricks to catch 
 The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance 
 Of their regardless charmer. Should she seem 
 Softening the least approvance to bestow. 
 Their colours burnish, and, by hope inspir'd. 
 They brisk advance ; then, on a sudden struck, 
 Retire disorder' d ; then again approach ; 
 In fond rotation spread the spotted wing. 
 And shiver every feather with desire. 
 
 Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods 
 They haste away, all as their fancy leads, 
 Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts ; 
 That Nature's great ^command may be obey'd : 
 Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive 
 Indulg'd in vain. Some to the holly-hedge 
 
JAMES THOMSON 129 
 
 Nesting repair, and to the thicket some ; 
 
 Some to the rude protection of the thorn 
 
 Commit their feeble offspring : the cleft tree 
 
 Offers its kind concealment to a few, 
 
 Their food its insects, and its moss their nests. 
 
 Others apart far in the grassy dale, 
 
 Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave. 
 
 But most in woodland solitudes delight. 
 
 In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks, 
 
 Steep, and divided by a babbling brook. 
 
 Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long day, 
 
 When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots 
 
 Of hazel, pendant o'er the plaintive stream. 
 
 They frame the first foundation of their domes ; 
 
 Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid. 
 
 And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought 
 
 But restless hurry through the busy air. 
 
 Beat by unnumber'd wings. The swallow sweeps 
 
 The slimy pool, to build his hanging house 
 
 Intent. And often, from the careless back 
 
 Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills 
 
 Pluck hair and wool ; and oft, when unobserv'd 
 
 Steal from the barn a straw : till soft and warm, 
 
 Clean, and complete, their habitation grows. 
 
 High from the summit of a craggy cliff, 
 Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns 
 On utmost Kilda's shore, whose lonely race 
 Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds. 
 The royal eagle draws his vigorous young, 
 Strong-pounc'd, and ardent with paternal fire. 
 Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own. 
 He drives them from his fort, the towering seat 
 For ages of his empire ; which in peace. 
 
I30 JAMES THOMSON 
 
 Unstain'd he holds, while many a league to sea 
 He wings his course, and preys in distant isles. 
 
 Should I my steps turn to the rural seat, 
 Whose lofty elms, and venerable oaks 
 Invite the rook, who, high amid the boughs. 
 In early Spring his airy city builds. 
 And ceaseless caws amusive ; there, well-pleas' d, 
 I might the various polity survey 
 Of the mixt household kind. The careful hen 
 Calls all her chirping family around, 
 Fed and defended by the fearless cock ; 
 Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks, 
 Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond. 
 The finely-chequer'd duck, before her train. 
 Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan 
 Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale ; 
 And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet 
 Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle, 
 Protective of his young. The turkey nigh. 
 Loud threatening, reddens ; while the peacock spreads 
 His e very-colour' d glory to the sun. 
 And swims in radiant majesty along. 
 
JAMES THOMSON 131 
 
 LXVI 
 
 MIGRATION* 
 
 When Autumn scatters his departing gleams, 
 Warn'd of approaching Winter, gather' d play 
 The swallow-people ; and toss'd wide around. 
 O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift, 
 The feather'd eddy floats : rejoicing once, 
 Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire ; 
 In clusters clung, beneath the mouldering bank, 
 And where, unpierc'd by frost, the cavern sweats. 
 Or rather into warmer climes convey' d. 
 With other kindred birds of season, there 
 They twitter chearful, till the vernal months 
 Invite them welcome back : for thronging now 
 Innumerous wings are in commotion all. 
 
 Where the Rhine loses his majestic force 
 In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep, 
 By diligence amazing, and the strong 
 Unconquerable hand of Liberty, 
 The stork-assembly meets ; for many a day 
 Consulting deep, and various, ere they take 
 Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky. 
 And now their rout design'd, their leaders chose, 
 Their tribes adjusted, clean'd their vigorous wings ; 
 And many a circle, many a short essay, 
 Wheel'd round and round, in congregation full 
 The figur'd flight ascends ; and, riding high 
 Th' aerial billows, mingles with the clouds. 
 
 Or where the Northern ocean in vast whirls 
 Boils round the naked melancholy isles 
 Of farthest Thule, and th' Atlantic surge 
 
132 JAMES THOMSON 
 
 Pours in among the stormy Hebrides ; 
 Who can recount what transmigrations there 
 Are annual made ? what nations come and go ? 
 And how the living clouds on clouds arise ? 
 Infinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air 
 And rude resounding shore are one wild cry. 
 
RICHARD JAGO 
 (171S-1781) 
 
 LXVII 
 
 THE BLACKBIRDS : AN ELEGY* 
 
 The sun had chased the mountain snow, 
 His beams had pierced the stubborn soil, 
 
 The melting streams began to flow. 
 
 And ploughmen urged their annual toil. 
 
 'Twas then, amidst the vocal throng, 
 Whom Nature waked to mirth and love, 
 
 A blackbird raised his am'rous song. 
 And thus it echoed through the grove. 
 
 " O fairest of the feathered train ! 
 
 For whom I sing, for whom I burn. 
 Attend with pity to my strain. 
 And grant my love a kind return. 
 
 " For see, the wintry storms are flown. 
 And zephyrs gently fan the air ; 
 Let us the genial influence own, 
 Let us the vernal pastime share. 
 
 " The raven plumes his jetty wing, 
 To please his croaking paramour. 
 The larks responsive carols sing 
 And tell their passion as they soar : 
 
 " But does the raven's sable wing 
 Excel the glossy jet of mine ? 
 Or can the lark more sweetly sing 
 
 Than we, who strength with softness join ? 
 133 
 
134 RICHARD JAGO 
 
 " let me then thy steps attend ! 
 
 I'll point new treasures to thy sight : 
 Whether the grove thy wish befriend, 
 Or hedgerows green or meadows bright. 
 
 " I'll guide thee to the clearest rill, 
 
 Whose streams among the pebbles stray ; 
 There will we sip, and sip our fill, 
 Or on the flow'ry margin play. 
 
 " I'll lead thee to the thickest brake. 
 Impervious to the schoolboy's eye ; 
 For thee the plastered nest I'll make. 
 And to thy downy bosom fly. 
 
 " When, prompted by a mother's care. 
 
 Thy warmth shall form th' imprisoned young ; 
 The pleasing task I'll gladly share. 
 Or cheer thy labours with a song. 
 
 " To bring thee food I'll range the fields, 
 And cull the best of ev'ry kind. 
 Whatever Nature's bounty yields. 
 And love's assiduous care can find. 
 
 " And when my lovely mate would stray. 
 To taste the summer sweets at large, 
 I'll wait at home the live-long day. 
 And fondly tend our little charge. 
 
 " Then prove with me the sweets of love, 
 With me divide the cares of life. 
 No bush shall boast in all the grove 
 A mate so fond, so blest a wife." 
 
RICHARD JAGO 135 
 
 He ceased his song — the plumy dame 
 Heard with delight the love-sick strain, 
 
 Nor long concealed the mutual flame, 
 Nor long repressed his am'rous pain. 
 
 He led her to the nuptial bow'r. 
 
 And perched with triumph by her side ; 
 
 What gilded roof could boast that hour 
 A fonder mate or happier bride ? 
 
 Next morn he waked her with a song, 
 " Behold," he said, " the new-born day, 
 
 The lark his matin-peal has rung, 
 Arise, my love, and come away." 
 
 Together through the fields they strayed, 
 And to the murm'ring riv'let's side. 
 
 Renewed their vows, and hopped and played, 
 With artless joy, and decent pride. 
 
 When 0, with grief my Muse relates 
 What dire misfortune closed the tale. 
 
 Sent by an order from the Fates, 
 A gunner met them in the vale. 
 
 Alarmed, the lover cried, " My dear, 
 Haste, haste away, from danger fly ; 
 
 Here, gunner, point thy thunder here, 
 spare my love, and let me die." 
 
 At him the gunner took his aim. 
 Too sure the volleyed thunder flew ! 
 
 had he chose some other game. 
 Or shot — as he was wont to do ! 
 
136 RICHARD JAGO 
 
 Divided pair ! forgive the wrong, 
 
 While I with tears your fate rehearse, 
 
 I'll join the widow's plaintive song. 
 And save the lover in my verse. 
 
RICHARD JAGO 137 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 THE SWALLOWS 
 
 At length the winter's howling blasts are o'er, 
 Arrayed in smiles the lovely spring returns, 
 
 Now fuel'd hearths attractive blaze no more. 
 And ev'ry breast with inward fervour burns. 
 
 Again the daisies peep, the violets blow. 
 
 Again the vocal tenants of the grove 
 Forgot the patt'ring hail or driving snow. 
 
 Renew the lay to melody and love. 
 
 " And see, my Delia, see o'er yonder stream, 
 Where on the bank the lambs in gambols play, 
 
 Alike attracted by the sunny gleam. 
 
 Again the swallows take their wonted way. 
 
 " Welcome, ye gentle tribe, your sports pursue. 
 
 Welcome again to Delia and to me. 
 Your peaceful councils on my roof renew. 
 
 And plan new settlements from danger free. 
 
 " Again I'll listen to your grave debates. 
 Again I'll hear your twitt'ring songs unfold. 
 
 What policy directs your wand'ring states. 
 
 What bounds are settled, (') and what tribes enrolled 
 
 " Again I'll hear you tell of distant lands, 
 What insect nations rise from Egypt's mud, 
 
 What painted swarms subsist on Lybia's sands. 
 What Ganges yields, and what th' Euphratean flood. 
 
138 RICHARD JAGO 
 
 " Thrice happy race ! whom Nature's call invites 
 To travel o'er her realms with active wing, 
 
 To taste her various stores, her best delights, 
 
 The summer's radiance, and the sweets of spring.' 
 
MICHAEL BRUCE 
 (1 746-1 767) 
 
 LXIX 
 
 ODE TO THE CUCKOO* 
 
 Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove ! 
 Thou messenger of Spring ! 
 Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, 
 And woods thy welcome sing. 
 
 What time the daisy decks the green, 
 Thy certain voice we hear ; 
 Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 
 Or mark the rolling year f 
 
 Delightful visitant ! with thee 
 I hail the time of flowers. 
 And hear the sound of music sweet 
 From birds among the bowers. 
 
 The schoolboy, wandering through the wood 
 To pull the primrose gay, 
 Starts, the new voice .of spring to hear, 
 And imitates thy lay. 
 
 What time the pea puts on the bloom. 
 Thou fliest thy vocal vale, 
 An annual guest in other lands, 
 Another spring to hail. 
 
 Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green. 
 Thy sky is ever clear ; 
 Thou hast no sorrow in thy song. 
 No winter in thy year. 
 139 
 
140 MICHAEL BRUCE 
 
 Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee ! 
 We'd make, with joyful wing. 
 Our annual visit o'er the globe, 
 Companions of the spring. 
 
ROBERT FERGUSSON 
 (1 750-1 774) 
 
 LXX 
 
 ODE TO THE GOWDSPINK 
 
 Frae fields where Spring her sweets has blawn 
 
 Wi' caller verdure owre the lawn, 
 
 The Gowdspink (') comes in new attire, 
 
 The brawest 'mang the whistling choir, 
 
 That, ere the sun can clear his een, 
 
 Wi' glib notes sane {'} the simmer's green. 
 
 Sure Nature herried (') mony a tree. 
 For spraings ( *) and bonny spats to thee : 
 Nae mair the rainbow can impart 
 Sic glowin ferlies (°) o' her art, 
 Whase pencil wrought its freaks at will 
 On thee, the sey-piece (') o' her skill. 
 Nae mair thro' straths in simmer dight 
 We seek the rose to bless our sight ; 
 Or bid the bonny wa'-flowers sprout 
 On yonder ruin's lofty snout. 
 Thy shining garments far outstrip 
 The cherries upo' Hebe's lip, 
 And fool the tints that Nature chose 
 To busk and paint the crimson rose. 
 
 'Mang men, wae's heart ! we often find 
 The brawest drest want peace of mind, 
 While he that gangs wi' ragged coat 
 Is well contentit wi' his lot. 
 Whan wand wi' glewy birdlime's set, 
 To steal far-afi your dautit (') mate, 
 Blyth wad ye change your cleething gay 
 In lieu of lavrock's sober grey. 
 141 
 
142 ROBERT FERGUSSON 
 
 In vain through woods you sair may ban 
 Th' envious treachery of man, 
 That, wi' your gowden glister ta'en 
 Still haunts you on the simmer's plain 
 And traps you 'mang the sudden fa's {') 
 0' winter's dreary dreepin' snaws. 
 Now steekit (") frae the gowany ('") field, 
 Frae ilka fav'rite houff (") and bield. 
 But mergh,(") alas ! to disengage 
 Your bonny bouck (") frae fettering cage. 
 Your free-born bosom beats in vain 
 For darling liberty again. 
 In window hung how aft we see 
 Thee keek ('*) around at warblers free, 
 That carrol saft, and sweetly sing 
 Wi' a' the blythness of the spring ? 
 Like Tantalus they hing you here 
 To spy the glories of the years ; 
 And tho' you're at the burnie's brink. 
 They douna suffer you to drink. 
 
 Ah, Liberty ! thou bonny dame, 
 How wildly wanton is thy stream, 
 Round whilk the birdies a' rejoice, 
 An' hail you wi' a gratefu' voice. 
 The gowdspink chatters joyous here. 
 And courts wi' gleesome sangs his peer : 
 The mavis frae the new-bloom'd thorn 
 Begins his lauds at earest morn ; 
 And herd lowns (") louping o'er the grass. 
 Need far less fleetching ('") till their lass. 
 Than paughty (") damsels bred at courts, 
 Wha thraw their mou's and take the dorts ("); 
 
ROBERT FERGUSSON 143 
 
 But, reft of thee, fient flee (") we care 
 For a' that life ahint can spare. 
 The Gowdsplnk, that sae lang has kend 
 Thy happy sweets (his wonted friend), 
 Her sad confinement ill can brook 
 In some dark chamber's dowy ("') nook ; 
 Tho' Mary's hand his nebb (") supplies, 
 Unkend to hunger's painfu' cries, 
 Ev'n beauty canna cheer the heart 
 Frae life, frae liberty apart ; 
 For now we tyne (") its wonted lay, 
 Sae lightsome sweet, sae blythely gay. 
 
 Thus Fortune aft a curse can gie, 
 To wyle us far frae liberty ; 
 Then tent (") her syren smiles wha list, 
 I'U ne'er envy your girnal's (") grist ; 
 For whan fair freedom smiles nae mair. 
 Care I for life ? Shame fa' the hair (") ; 
 A field o'ergrown wi' rankest stubble, 
 The essence of a paltry bubble. 
 
ROBERT BURNS 
 (1759-1796) 
 
 LXXI 
 
 ON SCARING SOME WATER-FOWL IN LOCH- 
 TURIT, A WILD SCENE AMONG THE 
 HILLS OF OCHTERTYRE* 
 
 Why, ye tenants of the lake, 
 For me your wat'ry haunt forsake ? 
 Tell me, fellow-creatures, why 
 At my presence thus you fly ? 
 Why disturb your social joys. 
 Parent, filial, kindred ties ? — 
 Common friend to you and me. 
 Nature's gifts to all are free : 
 Peaceful keep your dimpling wave, 
 Busy feed, or wanton lave ; 
 Or, beneath the sheltering rock. 
 Bide the surging billow's shock. 
 
 Conscious, blushing for our race, 
 Soon, too soon, your fears I trace. 
 Man, your proud, usurping foe. 
 Would be lord of all below ; 
 Plumes himself in Freedom's pride. 
 Tyrant stern to all beside. 
 
 The eagle, from the cliffy brow. 
 Marking you his prey below,' 
 In his breast no pity dwells, 
 Strong Necessity compels. 
 But Man, to whom alone is giv'n 
 A ray direct from pitying Heav'n, 
 Glories in his heart humane — 
 And creatures for his pleasure slain. 
 14-f 
 
ROBERT BURNS 145 
 
 In these savage, liquid plains, 
 Only known to wand'ring swains, 
 Where the mossy riv'let strays, 
 Far from human haunts and ways ; 
 All on Nature you depend. 
 And life's poor season peaceful spend. 
 
 Or, if man's superior might 
 Dare invade your native right. 
 On the lofty ether borne, 
 Man with all his pow'rs you scorn ; 
 Swiftly seek, on clanging wings, 
 Other lakes, and other springs ; 
 And the foe you cannot brave. 
 Scorn at least to be his slave. 
 
 10 
 
146 ROBERT BURNS 
 
 LXXII 
 
 TO THE WOOD LARK* 
 
 O STAY, sweet warbling woodlark, stay, 
 Nor quit for me the trembling spray ; 
 A hapless lover courts thy lay, 
 
 Thy soothing fond complaining. 
 
 Again, again that tender part. 
 That I may catch thy melting art ; 
 For surely that wad touch her heart, 
 Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 
 
 Say, was thy little mate unkind. 
 And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
 Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd 
 Sic notes o' wae could wauken. 
 
 Thou tells o' never-ending care, 
 0' speechless grief, and dark despair ; 
 For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair ! 
 Or my poor heart is broken ! 
 
ROBERT BURNS 147 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 THE LINNET* 
 
 Within the bush, her covert nest 
 A little linnet fondly prest ; 
 The dew sat chilly on her breast, 
 Sae early in the morning. 
 
 She soon shall see her tender brood. 
 The pride, the pleasure of the wood, 
 Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd 
 Awake the early morning. 
 
148 ROBERT BURNS 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 SONNET 
 
 On hearing a thrush sing in a morning walk in January, 
 written January 25, 1793, the birthday of the author.* 
 
 Sing on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless bough ; 
 
 Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain ; 
 
 See agM Winter, 'mid his surly reign, 
 At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow. 
 
 So in lone Poverty's dominion drear 
 
 Sits meek content with light unanxious heart. 
 Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part. 
 
 Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. 
 
 I thank thee, Author of this opening day ! 
 
 Thou whose bright sun now gilds the orient skies ! 
 
 Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys. 
 What wealth could never give nor take away ! 
 
 Yet come, thou child of poverty and care ; 
 The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll 
 share. 
 
ROBERT BURNS 149 
 
 LXXV 
 
 ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON* 
 
 A gentleman who held the patent for his honours immedi- 
 ately from Almighty God 
 
 Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
 Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; 
 Ye curlews calling through a clud ; 
 
 Ye whistling plover ; 
 And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood 
 
 He's gane for ever ! 
 
 Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals ; 
 Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
 Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 
 
 Circling the lake ; 
 Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 
 
 Rair (') for his sake. 
 
 Mourn, clamouring craiks at close of day, 
 'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay ; 
 And, when ye wing your annual way 
 
 Frae our cauld shore, 
 Tell the far warlds wha lies in clay. 
 
 Wham we deplore. 
 
 Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r 
 
 In some auld tree, or eldrich (') tow'r, 
 
 What time the moon wi' silent glow'r 
 
 Sets up her horn. 
 Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour 
 
 Till waukrife (') morn ! 
 
150 ROBERT BURNS 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 THE HEATHER WAS BLOOMING* 
 
 The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn, 
 Our lads gaed a-liunting, ae day at the dawn, 
 O'er moors and o'er mosses and mony a glen ; 
 At length they discover'd a bonnie moor-hen. (') 
 
 I red you beware at the hunting, young men ; 
 I red you beware at the hunting, young men ; 
 Tak some on the wing, and some as they spring, 
 But cannUy steal on a bonnie moor-hen. 
 
 Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather-bells, 
 Her colours betrayed her on yon mossy fells ; 
 Her plumage outlustred the pride o' the spring, 
 And ! as she wanton' d gay on the wing. 
 
 Auld Phoebus himsel, as he peep'd o'er the hill, 
 
 In spite of her plumage he tried his skill : 
 
 He levell'd his rays where she bask'd on the brae — 
 
 His rays were outshone, and but mark'd where she lay. 
 
 They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill. 
 The best of our lads wi' the best of their skill ; 
 But stUl as the fairest she sat in their sight. 
 Then whirr ! she was over, a mile at a flight. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER* 
 (1731-1800) 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 THE ROBIN IN V/INTER* 
 
 No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. 
 The redbreast warbles still, but is content 
 With slender notes, and more than half suppressed 
 Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light 
 From spray to spray, where'er he rest he shakes 
 From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, 
 That twinkle in the withered leaves below. 
 Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, 
 Charms more than silence. 
 
 '5' 
 
1 52 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 LXXVIIl 
 
 ON A GOLDFINCH 
 
 {Starved to Death in his Cage) 
 
 Time was when I was free as air, 
 The thistles downy feed my fare, 
 
 My drink the morning dew ; 
 I perched at will on ev'ry spray, 
 My form genteel, my plumage gay, 
 
 My strain for ever new. 
 
 But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain, 
 And form genteel were all in vain. 
 
 And of a transient date ; 
 For, caught and caged, and starved to death. 
 In dying sighs my little breath 
 
 Soon passed the wiry grate. 
 
 Thanks, gentle swain, for aU my woes. 
 And thanks for this effectual close 
 
 And cure of ev'ry ill ! 
 More cruelty could none express ; 
 And I, if you had shewn me less, 
 
 Had been your pris'ner still. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 153 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 THE JACKDAW* 
 
 There is a bird who, by his coat, 
 And by the hoarseness of his note, 
 
 Might be supposed a crow ; 
 A great frequenter of the church, 
 Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch, 
 
 And dormitory too. 
 
 Above the steeple shines a plate. 
 That turns and turns, to indicate 
 
 From what point blows the weather. 
 Look up — your brains begin to swim, 
 'Tis in the clouds — that pleases him, 
 
 He chooses it the rather. 
 
 Fond of the speculative height. 
 Thither he wings his airy flight. 
 
 And thence securely sees 
 The bustle and the raree-show 
 That occupy mankind below. 
 
 Secure and at his ease. 
 
 You think, no doubt, he sits and muses 
 On future broken bones and bruises, 
 
 If he chances to fall. 
 No ; not a single thought like that 
 Employs his philosophic pate, 
 
 Or troubles it at all. 
 
154 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 He sees, that this igreat roundabout- 
 The world, with all its motley rout. 
 
 Church, army, physic, law. 
 Its customs, and its bus'nesses. 
 Is no concern at all of his, 
 
 And says — what says he ? — Caw. 
 
 Thrice happy bird ! I too have seen 
 Much of the vanities of men ; 
 
 And sick of having seen 'em. 
 Would cheerfully these limbs resign 
 For such a pair of wings as thine 
 
 And such a head between 'em. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 155 
 
 LXXX 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE GLOWWORM 
 
 A Nightingale that all day long 
 Had cheered the village with his song, 
 Nor yet at eve his note suspended, 
 Nor yet when eventide was ended, 
 Began to feel, as well he might. 
 The keen demands of appetite ; 
 When looking eagerly around. 
 He spied far off, upon the ground, 
 A something shining in the dark. 
 And knew the Glowworm by his spark ; 
 So, stooping down from hawthorn top, 
 He thought to put him in his crop. 
 
 The worm, aware of his intent. 
 Harangued him thus, right eloquent : 
 " Did you admire my lamp," quoth he, 
 " As much as I your minstrelsy, 
 You would abhor to do me wrong. 
 As much as I to spoil your song : 
 For 'twas the self-same Power Divine 
 Taught you to sing, and me to shine ; 
 That you with music, I with light. 
 Might beautify and cheer the night." 
 The songster heard this short oration, 
 And warbling out his approbation. 
 Released him, 3s my story tells, 
 And found a supper somewhere else. 
 
iS6 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED* 
 
 I SHALL not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau {') 
 
 If birds confabulate or no ; 
 
 'Tis clear that they were always able 
 
 To hold discourse, at least, in fable ; 
 
 And ev'n the child who knows no better 
 
 Than to interpret by the letter 
 
 A story of a cock and bull, 
 
 Must have a most uncommon skull. 
 
 It chanced upon a winter's day. 
 But warm, and bright, and calm as May, 
 The birds, conceiving a design 
 To forestall sweet St. Valentine, 
 In many an orchard, copse and grove. 
 Assembled on affairs of love, 
 And with much twitter and much chatter, 
 Began to agitate the matter. 
 At length a Bullfinch, who could boast 
 More years and wisdom than the most. 
 Entreated, opening wide his beak, 
 A moment's liberty to speak ; 
 And, silence publicly enjoin'd, 
 Delivered briefly thus his mind : 
 " My friends ! be cautious how ye treat 
 The subject upon which we meet ; 
 I fear we shall have winter yet." 
 A finch, whose tongue knew no control. 
 With golden wing and satin poll, 
 A last year's bird, who ne'er had tried 
 What pairing means, thus pert replied : 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 157 
 
 " Methinks the gentleman," quoth she, 
 " Opposite, in the apple-tree, 
 • By his good will would keep us single 
 Till yonder heaven and earth shall mingle. 
 Or (which is likelier to befall) 
 Till death exterminate us all. 
 I couple without more ado ; 
 My dear Dick Redcap, what say you ? " 
 Dick heard, and tweedling, ogling, bridling, 
 Turning short round, strutting and sidling. 
 Attested glad his approbation 
 Of an immediate conjugation. 
 Their sentiments, so well express' d. 
 Influenced mightily the rest ; 
 All paired, and each pair built a nest. 
 But though the birds were thus in haste. 
 The leaves came on not quite so fast. 
 And Destiny, that sometimes bears 
 An aspect stern on man's affairs, 
 Not altogether smiled on theirs. 
 The wind, of late breathed gently forth. 
 Now shifted east, and east by north ; 
 Bare trees and shrubs but ill, you know. 
 Could shelter them from rain and snow ; 
 Stepping into their nests, they paddled, 
 Themselves were chilled, their eggs were addled. 
 Soon every father bird and mother 
 Grew quarrelsome, and pecked each other, 
 Parted without the least regret. 
 Except that they had ever met, 
 And learned in future to be wiser 
 Than to neglect a good adviser. 
 
JAMES HURDIS 
 (1763-1801) 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 A BIRD'S NEST* 
 
 It was my admiration 
 To view the structure of that little work, 
 A bird's nest — mark it well, within, without : 
 No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut, 
 No rail to fix, no bodkin to insert. 
 No glue to join ; his little beak was all ; 
 And yet how neatly finished ! What nice hand, 
 With every implement and means of art. 
 And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot, 
 Could make me such another ? Fondly then 
 We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill 
 Instinctive genius foils ! 
 
 158 
 
JAMES HURDIS 159 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 HOME-MAKING * 
 
 Now ev'ry feather'd tenant of the grove 
 Labours his sweetest song, studious to cheer 
 His busy mate, a pensive architect. 
 That builds the woven wonder of the nest, 
 Laps in a gentle cradle lin'd with down 
 Her future brood, or vigilant expects 
 Day after day the pregnant egg to live, 
 And supplicate provision not in vain. 
 Such care maternal needs the sweet relief 
 Of labour' d song, and sometimes, parent Sir, 
 The free assistance of a silent beak. 
 Enamour'd songsters, grateful is the task, 
 While you from ev'ry brake the rising orb 
 With sweet hosanna welcome, to admire 
 And mark the several energies, that fill 
 Your morning anthem of spontaneous praise. 
 The sparrow couple with industrious bill 
 The scatter'd straw collect, contriving snug 
 Under the cottage eave or low-roof'd barn 
 Their genial couch. More than mere chirpers now. 
 They watch the flouting feather as it flies, 
 Eye-serve the goose for his superfluous down. 
 Or dressing fowl, or self-adorning drake. 
 And bear triumphant the loose spoil away. 
 Nor these alone are busy. Feathery pairs, 
 Innumerable as the kindling bud, 
 Of wedded cares partake, and build the nest, 
 And hopes divide, with constancy that shames 
 Man's brittle contract and infirm regard. 
 
i6o JAMES HURDIS 
 
 Lo ! to the steeple with alternate wing 
 
 Bears expeditious his long twig the daw, 
 
 Nor seldom struggles with his awkward freight. 
 
 And drops it, startled by the hooting boy 
 
 That shouts beneath. The solitary dove. 
 
 Which loves the stUl dilapidated tower 
 
 Of desert castle, or the time-cleft arch 
 
 Of ancient chantry, whose unshelter'd shafts 
 
 Ivy in pity clothes, and verdant moss 
 
 Crowns in respect his weather-beaten head, 
 
 With frequent wing alighting in the field 
 
 Bears the loose stubble thence, and builds on high 
 
 Her bed unseen, beyond the pilferer's reach. 
 
 His airy nurs'ry in the neighb'ring elm 
 
 Constructs the social rook, and makes the grove 
 
 That girds the crumbling edifice around. 
 
 And ev'ry angle of its ruin'd pile. 
 
 With the bass note of his harsh love resound. 
 
GEORGE CRABBE 
 (1754-1832) 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 A STORM ON THE EAST COAST* 
 
 View now the winter storm ! above, one cloud, 
 
 Black and unbroken, all the skies o'ershroud : 
 
 The unwieldy porpoise through the day before 
 
 Had rolled in view of boding men on shore ; 
 
 And sometimes hid and sometimes showed his form, 
 
 Dark as the cloud and furious as the storm. 
 
 All where the eye delights yet dreads to roam, 
 
 The breaking billows cast the flying foam 
 
 Upon the biUows rising — all the deep 
 
 Is restless change ; the waves so swelled and steep, 
 
 Breaking and sinking, and the sunken swells, 
 
 Nor one, one moment, in its station dwells : 
 
 But nearer land you may the billows trace. 
 
 As if contending in their watery chase ; 
 
 May watch the mightiest till the shoal they reach. 
 
 Then break and hurry to their utmost stretch ; 
 
 Curled as they come, they strike with furious force. 
 
 And then reflowing, take their grating course. 
 
 Raking the rounded flints, which ages past 
 
 Rolled by their rage, and shall to ages last. 
 
 Far off the petrel in the troubled way 
 
 Swims with her brood, or flutters in the spray ; 
 
 She rises often, often drops again, 
 
 And sports at ease on the tempestuous main. 
 
 High o'er the restless deep, above the reach 
 
 Of gunners' hope, vast flocks of wild-duck stretch ; 
 
 Far as the eye can glance on either side, 
 
 In a broad space 5nd level line they glide ; 
 
 II 16' 
 
1 62 GEORGE CRABBE 
 
 All in their wedge-like figures from the north 
 
 Day after day, flight after flight, go forth. 
 
 In-shore their passage tribes of sea-gulls urge, 
 
 And drop for prey within the sweeping surge ; 
 
 Oft in the rough opposing blast they fly 
 
 Far back, then turn and all their force apply. 
 
 While to the storm they give their weak complaining cry ; 
 
 Or clap the sleek white pinion on the breast. 
 
 And in the restless ocean dip for rest. 
 
JAMES GRAHAME 
 (176S-1811) 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 THE REDBREAST'S HAUNT* 
 
 High is his perch, but humble is his home, 
 
 And well concealed. Sometimes within the sound 
 
 Of heartsome mill-clack, where the spacious door. 
 
 White-dusted, tells him plenty reigns around — 
 
 Qose at the root of brier-bush, that o'erhangs 
 
 The narrow stream, with shealings bedded white, 
 
 He fixes his abode, and lives at will ; 
 
 Oft near some single cottage he prefers 
 
 To rear his little* home ; there, pert and spruce, 
 
 He shares the refuse of the goodwife's churn, 
 
 Which kindly on the wall for him she leaves : 
 
 Below her lintel oft he lights, then in 
 
 He boldly flits, and fluttering loads his bill. 
 
 And to his young the yellow treasure bears. 
 
 163 
 
1 64 JAMES GRAHAME 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 THE GORCOCK* 
 
 With earliest spring, while yet in mountain cleughs 
 Lingers the frozen wreath, when yeanling lambs 
 Upon the little heath-encircled patch 
 Of smoothest sward totter, — the Gorcock's (') call 
 Is heard from out the mist, high on the hill ; 
 But not till when the tiny heather bud 
 Appears, are struck the spring-time leagues of love. 
 Remote from shepherd's hut, or trampled fold. 
 The new joined pair their lowly mansion pitch, 
 Perhaps beneath the juniper's rough shoots. 
 Or castled on some plat of tufted heath, 
 Surrounded by a narrow sable moat 
 Of swampy moss. Within the fabric rude. 
 Or e'er the new moon waxes to the full, 
 The assiduous dam eight spotted spheroids {*) sees. 
 And feels beneath her heart, fluttering with joy. 
 Nor long she sits, till, with redoubled joy. 
 Around her she beholds an active brood 
 Run to and fro or through her covering wings 
 Their downy heads look out ; and much she loves 
 To pluck the heather crops, (') not for herself 
 But for their little bills. Thus, by degrees. 
 She teaches them to find the food, which God 
 Has spread for them amid the desart wild. 
 And seeming barrenness. Now they essay 
 Their fuU-plumed wings, and whirring, spurn the ground ; 
 But soon alight fast by yon moss-grown cairn. 
 Round which the berries blae (a beauteous tint 
 Of purple, deeper dyed with darkest blue) 
 
JAMES GRAHAME 165 
 
 Lurk 'mid the small round leaves. Enjoy the hour, 
 While yet ye may, ye unoffending flock ! 
 For not far distant now the bloody morn 
 When man's protection, selfishly bestowed. 
 Shall be withdrawn, and murder roam at will. 
 
ANONYMOUS 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 PIGEON AND WREN* 
 
 Coo-oo, coo-oo, 
 It's as much as a pigeon can do 
 
 To maintain two ; 
 But the little wren can maintain ten, 
 And bring them all up like gentlemen. 
 
 i66 
 
ANONYMOUS 167 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 CROWS * 
 
 On the first of March, 
 The craws begin to search. 
 By the first of April, 
 They are sitting still. 
 By the first o' May 
 They're a flown away ; 
 Croupin' greedy back again, 
 Wi* October's wind and rain. 
 
1 68 ANONYMOUS 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 THE ROBIN AND THE WREN* 
 
 The robin and the wren, 
 
 Are God Almighty's cock and hen. 
 
 The martin and the swallow, 
 
 Are God Almighty's bow and arrow. 
 
ANONYMOUS 169 
 
 xc 
 
 MAGPIES* 
 
 One, Sorrow, 
 
 Two, Mirth, 
 
 Three, a Wedding, 
 
 Four, a Birth, 
 
 Five, for Silver, 
 
 Six, for Gold, 
 
 Seven, for a secret not to be told. 
 
 Eight, for Heaven, 
 
 Nine, for Hell, 
 
 And Ten, for the devil's ain sel. 
 
FROM 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 TO 
 
 LIVING WRITERS 
 
WILLIAM BLAKE 
 (1757-1827) 
 
 xci 
 
 THE BLOSSOM* 
 
 Merry, merry sparrow ! 
 
 Under leaves so green, 
 A happy blossom 
 
 Sees you, swift as arrow, 
 Seek your cradle narrow 
 
 Near my bosom. 
 
 Pretty, pretty robin ! 
 
 Under leaves so green, 
 A happy blossom 
 
 Hears you sobbing, sobbing. 
 Pretty, pretty robin. 
 
 Near my bosom. 
 
 173 
 
174 WILLIAM BLAKE 
 
 XCIl 
 
 THE BIRDS* 
 
 He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove, 
 Tell me, fair one, tell me, love ; 
 Where thou thy charming nest dost build, 
 
 thou pride of every field ! 
 
 She. Yonder stands a lonely tree, 
 
 There I live and mourn for thee ; 
 Morning drinks my silent tear. 
 
 And evening winds my sorrow bear. 
 
 He. O thou summer's harmony, 
 
 1 have liv'd and mourn'd for thee ; 
 Each day I mourn along the wood. 
 
 And night hath heard my sorrows loud. 
 
 She. Dost thou truly long for me ? 
 
 And am I thus sweet to thee ? 
 Sorrow now is at an end, 
 
 my lover and my friend ! 
 
 He. Come, on wings of joy we'll fly 
 
 To where my bower hangs on high ; 
 Come, and make thy calm retreat 
 
 Among green leaves and blossoms sweet. 
 
WILLIAM BLAKE 175 
 
 XCIII 
 
 SONG* 
 
 Love and harmony combine, 
 And around our souls entwine, 
 While thy branches mix with mine, 
 And our roots together join. 
 
 Joys upon our branches sit, 
 Chirping loud and singing sweet ; 
 Like gentle streams beneath our feet 
 Innocence and virtue meet. 
 
 Thou the golden fruit dost bear, 
 I am clad in flowers fair ; 
 Thy sweet boughs perfume the air, 
 And the turtle buildeth there. 
 
 There she sits and feeds her young. 
 Sweet I hear her mournful song ; 
 And thy lovely leaves among. 
 There is love, I hear her tongue. 
 
 There his charming nest doth lay. 
 There he sleeps the night away, 
 There he sports along the day, 
 And doth among our branches play. 
 
176 WILLIAM BLAKE 
 
 XCIV 
 
 JUBILANCE * 
 
 Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring : 
 The Lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn 
 Appears, listens silent : then springing from the waving 
 
 Corn-field loud 
 He leads the Choir of Day ; trill, trill, triU, trill : 
 Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse ; 
 Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly 
 
 Shell : 
 His little throat labours with inspiration ; every feather 
 On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence 
 
 Divine. 
 All Nature listens silent to him, and the awful Sun 
 Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird 
 With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe. 
 Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their 
 
 Song, 
 The Thrush, the Linnet, and the Goldfinch, Robin and the 
 
 Wren 
 Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain : 
 The Nightingale again assays his song, and through the day 
 And through the night warbles luxuriant : every Bird of 
 
 Song 
 Attending his loud harmony with admiration and love. 
 
JOHN KEATS 
 (1795-1821) 
 
 xcv 
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
 My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk. 
 Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
 
 One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk : 
 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot. 
 But being too happy in thy happiness, — 
 That thou, light-winged dryad of the trees, 
 
 In some melodious plot 
 Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
 Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 
 
 for a draught of vintage ! that hath been 
 
 Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth. 
 Tasting of Flora and the country-green. 
 
 Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth ! 
 O for a beaker full of the warm South ! 
 Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
 With beaded bubbles winking at the brim. 
 
 And purple-stained mouth ; 
 That I might drink, and leave the world unseen. 
 And with thee fade away into the forest dim : 
 
 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
 
 What thou among the leaves hast never known. 
 The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
 
 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; 
 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last, grey hairs. 
 
 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; 
 
 12 177 
 
178 JOHN KEATS 
 
 Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
 
 And leaden-eyed despairs ; 
 Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 
 Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 
 
 Away ! away ! for I wiU fly to thee, 
 
 Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 
 But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 
 
 Though the dull brain perplexes and retards : 
 Already with thee ! tender is the night. 
 
 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
 Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays ; 
 
 But here there is no light. 
 Save what from Heaven is with the breezes blown 
 Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 
 
 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet. 
 
 Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs. 
 But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet » 
 
 Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
 The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ; 
 White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ; 
 Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves ; 
 
 And mid-May's eldest chUd, 
 The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine. 
 
 The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 
 
 Darkling I listen ; and for many a time 
 I have been half in love with easeful Death, 
 
 Call'd him soft names in many a mus^d rhyme, 
 To take into the air my quiet breath ; 
 
 Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain. 
 
JOHN KEATS 179 
 
 While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
 
 In such an ecstasy ! 
 Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — 
 To thy high requiem become a sod. 
 
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird ! 
 
 No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
 The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
 
 In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 
 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home. 
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
 
 The same that oft-times hath 
 Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 
 
 Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell 
 
 To toll me back from thee to my sole self ! 
 Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
 
 As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
 Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades 
 Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
 Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep 
 
 In the next valley-glades : 
 Was it a vision, or a waking dream ? 
 
 Fled is that music :— Do I wake or sleep i 
 
i8o JOHN KEATS 
 
 XCVI 
 
 EPISTLE TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE* 
 
 Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning, 
 
 And with proud breast his own white shadow crowning ; 
 
 He slants his neck beneath the waters bright 
 
 So silently, it seems a beam of light 
 
 Come from the galaxy : anon he sports, — 
 
 With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts. 
 
 Or ruffles all the surface of the lake 
 
 In striving from its crystal face to take 
 
 Some diamond water drops, and them to treasure 
 
 In milky nest and sip them off at leisure. 
 
 But not a moment can he there ensure them, 
 
 Nor to such downy rest can be allure them ; 
 
 For down they rush as though they would be free, 
 
 And drop like hours into eternity. 
 
JOHN KEATS i8i 
 
 XCVII 
 
 SAY. DOTH THE DULL SOIL . . ."* 
 
 Say, doth the dull soil 
 Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed, 
 And feedeth still, more comely than itself ? 
 Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves ? 
 Or shall the tree be envious of the dove 
 Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings 
 To wander wherewithal and find its joys ? 
 We are such forest trees, and our fair boughs 
 Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves, 
 But eagles golden-feathered, who do tower 
 Above us in their beauty, and must reign 
 In right thereof ; for 'tis the eternal law 
 That first in beauty should be first in might. 
 
1 82 JOHN KEATS 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 GOLDFINCHES * 
 
 Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop 
 From low-hung branches ; little space they stop ; 
 But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek ; 
 Then off at once, as in a wanton freak : 
 Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings, 
 Pausing upon their yellow flutterings. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 (1792-1822) 
 
 XCIX 
 
 THE ROOKS * 
 
 Ay, many flowering islands lie 
 
 In the waters of wide Agony : 
 
 To such a one this morn was led 
 
 My bark by soft winds piloted : 
 
 'Mid the mountains Euganean 
 
 I stood listening to the p»an 
 
 With which the legioned rooks did hail 
 
 The sun's uprise majestical ; 
 
 Gathering round with wings all hoar, 
 
 Through the dewy mist they soar 
 
 Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven 
 
 Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 
 
 Flecked with fire and azure, lie 
 
 In the unfathomable sky. 
 
 So their plumes of purple grain. 
 
 Starred with drops of golden rain, 
 
 Gleam above the sunlight woods, 
 
 As in silent multitudes 
 
 On the morning's fitful gale 
 
 Through the broken mist they sail. 
 
 And the vapours cloven and gleaming 
 
 Follow down the dark steep streaming. 
 
 Till all is bright, and clear, and still. 
 
 Round the solitary hill. 
 
 183 
 
1 84 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 SEMICHORUS OF SPIRITS FROM "PROME- 
 THEUS UNBOUND " * 
 
 There the voluptuous nightingales 
 
 Are awake through all the broad noon-day. 
 When one with bliss or sadness fails, 
 
 And through the windless ivy-boughs, 
 Sick with sweet love, droops dying away 
 
 On its mate's music-panting bosom ; 
 Another from the swinging blossom. 
 
 Watching to catch the languid close 
 Of the last strain, then lifts on high 
 
 The wings of the weak melody, 
 Till some new strain of feeling bear 
 
 The song, and all the woods are mute ; 
 When there is heard through the dim air 
 
 The rush of wings, and rising there 
 Like many a lake-surrounded flute, 
 
 Sounds overflow the listener's brain 
 So sweet, that joy is almost pain. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 185 
 
 CI 
 
 THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 A WOODMAN whose rought heart was out of tune 
 (I think such hearts yet never came to good) 
 Hated to hear, under the stars or moon, 
 
 One nightingale in an interfluous wood 
 Satiate the hungry dark with melody (') ; — 
 And as a vale is watered by a flood, 
 
 Or as the moonlight fills the open sky, 
 Struggling with darkness, — as a tuberose 
 Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie 
 
 Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, 
 
 The singing of that happy nightingale 
 
 In this sweet forest, from the golden close 
 
 Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, 
 Was interfused upon the silentness ; 
 The folded roses and the violets pale 
 
 Heard her within her slumbers, the abyss 
 Of heaven with all its planets, the dull ear 
 Of the night-cradled earth, the loneliness 
 
 Of the circumfluous waters, — every sphere 
 And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, 
 ' And every wind of the mute atmosphere. 
 
1 86 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, 
 And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, 
 And every silver moth fresh from the grave 
 
 Which is its cradle — ever from below 
 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far. 
 To be consumed within the purest glow 
 
 Of one serene and unapproached star. 
 As if it were a lamp of earthly light, 
 Unconscious, as some human lovers are. 
 
 Itself how low, how high beyond all height 
 
 The heaven where it would perish ! — and every form 
 
 That worshipped in the temple of the night 
 
 Was awed into delight, and by the charm 
 
 Girt as with an interminable zone. 
 
 Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm 
 
 Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion 
 Out of their dreams ; harmony became love 
 In every soul but one. 
 
 And so this man returned with axe and saw 
 At evening close from killing the tall treen. 
 The soul of whom by Nature's gentle law 
 
 Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green 
 The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, 
 Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 187 
 
 With jagged leaves, — and from the forest tops 
 Singing the winds to sleep — or weeping oft 
 Fast showers of aerial water-drops 
 
 Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft, 
 Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness : — 
 Around the cradles of the birds aloft 
 
 They spread themselves into the loveliness 
 
 Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers 
 
 Hang like moist clouds : — or, where high branches kiss, 
 
 Make a green space among the silent bowers. 
 Like a vast fane in a metropolis. 
 Surrounded by the columns and the towers 
 
 All overwrought with branch-like traceries 
 In which there is religion — and the mute 
 Persuasion of unkindled melodies, 
 
 Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute 
 
 Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast 
 
 Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute. 
 
 Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed 
 To such brief unison as on the brain 
 One tone, which never can recur, has cast. 
 One accent never to return again. 
 
 The world is full of Woodmen who expel 
 Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life. 
 And vex the nightingales in every dell. 
 
1 88 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 en 
 THE CAPTIVE BIRD* 
 
 Poor captive bird ! who, from thy narrow cage, 
 Pourest such music, that it might assuage 
 The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, 
 Were they not deaf to all sweet melody ; 
 This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale 
 Are dead, indeed, my adored nightingale ! 
 But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom. 
 And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. 
 
 High, spirit-winged Heart ! who dost for ever 
 Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, 
 Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed. 
 It over-soared this low and worldly shade. 
 Lie shattered ; and thy panting, wounded breast 
 Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest ! 
 I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be. 
 Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 189 
 
 cm 
 THE WIDOW BIRD* 
 
 A WIDOW bird sat mourning for her love 
 
 Upon a wintry bough ; 
 The frozen wind crept on above, 
 
 The freezing stream below. 
 
 There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 
 
 No flower upon the ground. 
 And little motion in the air, 
 
 Except the mill-wheel sound. 
 
I90 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 CIV 
 
 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 bright' ning. 
 
 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. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 191 
 
 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 heav'n is overflowed. 
 
 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 fall of dew. 
 Scattering unbeholden 
 Its aerial hue 
 Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view : 
 
 Like a rose embowered 
 
 In its own green leaves. 
 By warm winds deflowered, 
 Till the scent it gives 
 Makesfaintwith too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves: 
 
192 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 Sound of vernal showers 
 
 On the twinkling grass, 
 Rain-awaken'd flowers — 
 
 All that ever was 
 Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 
 
 Teach us, Sprite or Bird, 
 
 What sweet thoughts are thine : 
 I have never heard 
 Praise of love or wine 
 That panted forth a rapture so divine. 
 
 Chorus hymeneal, 
 
 Or triumphal chant. 
 Matched with thine would be all 
 
 But an empty vaunt, 
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
 
 What objects are the fountains 
 
 Of thy happy strain f 
 What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
 What shapes of sky or plain ? 
 What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 
 
 With thy clear keen joyance 
 
 Languor cannot be : 
 Shadow of annoyance 
 Never came near thee : 
 Thou lovest — but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
 
 Waking or asleep, 
 
 Thou of death must deem 
 Things more true and deep 
 
 Than we mortals dream, 
 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 19J 
 
 We look before and after, 
 
 And pine for what is not : 
 Our sincerest laughter 
 With some pain is fraught ; 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 
 
 Yet, if we could scorn 
 
 Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
 If we were things born 
 
 Not to shed a tear, 
 I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 
 
 Better than all measures 
 
 Of delightful sound, 
 Better than all treasures 
 
 That in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know. 
 Such harmonious madness 
 
 From my lips would flow. 
 The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 
 
 13 
 
194 TERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 cv 
 
 KINGFISHERS * 
 
 I CANNOT tell my joy, when o'er a lake 
 Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined, 
 I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward 
 And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries, 
 With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay 
 Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 195 
 
 cvi 
 
 THE AZIOLA * 
 
 " Do you not hear the Aziola cry ? 
 Methinks she must be nigh," 
 Said Mary, as we sate 
 In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought ; 
 
 And I, who thought 
 This Aziola was some tedious woman, 
 
 Asked, " Who is Aziola ? " How elate 
 I felt to know that it was nothing human. 
 No mockery of myself to fear or hate : 
 And Mary saw my soul. 
 And laugh t, and said, " Disquiet yourself not ; 
 'Tis nothing but a little downy owl." 
 
 Sad Aziola, many an eventide 
 
 Thy music I had heard 
 By wood and stream, meadow and' mountain side. 
 
 And fields and marshes wide. 
 Such as nor voice, nor wind, nor lute, nor bird. 
 
 The soul ever stirred ; 
 Unlike and far sweeter than them all. 
 Sad Aziola ! from that moment I 
 
 Loved thee and thy sad cry. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 (1772-1834) 
 
 CVII 
 
 GLYCINE'S SONG* 
 
 A SUNNY shaft did I behold, 
 
 From sky to earth it slanted : 
 And poised therein a bird so bold — 
 
 Sweet bird, thou wart enchanted ! 
 He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled 
 
 Within that shaft of sunny mist ; 
 His eyes of fire, his beak of gold. 
 
 All else of amethyst ! 
 
 And thus he sang : " Adieu ! adieu ! 
 Love's dreams prove seldom true. 
 Sweet month of May, 
 We must away : 
 Far, far away ! 
 To-day ! to-day ! " 
 
 196 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 197 
 
 CVIII 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 A Conversation Poem. April, 1798 
 
 No cloud, no relique of the sunken day 
 
 Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip 
 
 Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. 
 
 Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge ! 
 
 You see the glimmer of the stream beneath 
 
 But hear no murmuring : it flows silently, 
 
 O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, 
 
 A balmy night ! and though the stars be dim. 
 
 Yet let us think upon the vernal showers 
 
 That gladden the green earth, and we shall find 
 
 A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. 
 
 And hark ! the Nightingale begins its song, 
 
 " Most musical, most melancholy " bird ! 
 
 A melancholy bird ! Oh, idle thought ! 
 
 In nature there is nothing melancholy. 
 
 But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced 
 
 With the remembrance of a grievous wrong 
 
 Or slow distemper, or neglected love, 
 
 (And so, poor wretch ! filled all things with himself, 
 
 And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale 
 
 Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he. 
 
 First named these notes a melancholy strain. 
 
 And many a poet echoes the conceit ; 
 
 Poet who hath been building up the rhyme 
 
 When he had better far have stretched his limbs 
 
 Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell 
 
 By sun or moonlight, to the influxes 
 
 Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements 
 
 Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song 
 
198 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 And of his fame forgetful ! so his fame 
 Should share in Nature's immortality ; 
 A venerable thing ! and so his song 
 Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself 
 Be loved like Nature ! But 'twill not be so ; 
 And youths and maidens most poetical, 
 Who lose the deepening twilight of the spring 
 In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still 
 Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs 
 O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. 
 
 My Friend, and thou, our Sister ! we have learnt 
 A different lore ; we may not thus profane 
 Nature's sweet voices, always full of love 
 And joyance ! 'Tis the merry Nightingale 
 That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates 
 With fast thick warble his delicious notes. 
 As he were fearful that an April night 
 Would be too short for him to utter forth 
 His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul 
 Of all its music ! 
 
 And I know a grove 
 Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, 
 Which the great lord inhabits not ; and so 
 This grove is wild with tangling underwood. 
 And the trim walks are broken up, and grass. 
 Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. 
 But never elsewhere in one place I knew 
 So many nightingales ; and far and near. 
 In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, 
 They answer and provoke each other's song. 
 With skirmish and capricious passagings, 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 199 
 
 And murmurs musical and swift " jug-jug," 
 
 And one low piping sound more sweet than all 
 
 Stirring the air with such a harmony, 
 
 That should you close your eyes, you might almost 
 
 Forget it was not day ! On moonlit bushes, 
 
 Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed. 
 
 You may perchance behold them on the twigs, 
 
 Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, 
 
 Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade 
 
 Lights up her love-torch. 
 
 A most gentle Maid, 
 Who dweUeth in her hospitable home 
 Hard by the castle, and at latest eve 
 (Even like a lady vowed and dedicate 
 To something more than Nature in the grove) 
 Glides through the pathways ; she knows all their notes, 
 That gentle Maid ! and oft a moment's space. 
 What time the moon was lost behind a cloud. 
 Hath heard a pause of silence ; tUl the moon. 
 Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky 
 With one sensation, and these wakeful birds 
 Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 
 As if some sudden gale had swept at once 
 A hundred airy harps ! And she hath watched 
 Many a nightingale perched giddily 
 On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, 
 And to that motion tune his wanton song. 
 Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. 
 
 Farewell, O Warbler ! till to-morrow eve. 
 And you, my friends, farewell, a short farewell ! 
 We have been loitering long and pleasantly. 
 
200 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 And now for our dear homes. — That strain again ! 
 
 Full fain it would delay me ! My dear babe, 
 
 Who, capable of no articulate sound, 
 
 Mars all things with his imitative lisp, 
 
 How he would place his hand beside his ear, 
 
 His little hand, the small forefinger up. 
 
 And bid us listen ! And I deem it wise 
 
 To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well 
 
 The eveniiig-star ; and once, when he awoke 
 
 In most distressful mood (some inward pain 
 
 Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream) 
 
 I hurried with him to our orchard plot. 
 
 And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once. 
 
 Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently. 
 
 While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, 
 
 Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam ! Well ! — 
 
 It is a father's tale : But if that Heaven 
 
 Should give me life, his chUdhood shall grow up 
 
 Familiar with these songs, that with the night 
 
 He may associate joy. — Once more, farewell. 
 
 Sweet Nightingale ! Once more, my friends, farewell ! 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 201 
 
 CIX 
 
 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER* 
 (1798) 
 PART THE FIRST 
 
 It is an ancient Mariner, 
 And he stoppeth one of three, 
 
 An ancient 
 
 Mariner 
 
 meeteth 
 
 By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, lants bidden 
 
 ding-feast, 
 and detain- 
 eth one. 
 
 Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? 
 
 " The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
 And I am next of kin ; 
 The guests are met, the feast is set : 
 May'st hear the merry din." 
 
 He holds him with his skinny hand, 
 
 " There was a ship," quoth he. 
 
 " Hold off ! unhand me, greybeard loon ! " 
 
 Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 
 
 He holds him with his glittering eye — 
 The Wedding-Guest stood still, 
 And listens like a three-years child : 
 The Mariner hath his will. 
 
 The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone ; 
 He cannot choose but hear ; 
 And thus spake on that ancient man, 
 The bright-eyed Mariner. 
 
 Tlie Wed- 
 ding-Guest 
 is spell- 
 bound by 
 the eye of 
 the old sea- 
 faring man, 
 and con- 
 strained to 
 hear his tale. 
 
202 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, 
 
 Merrily did we drop 
 
 Below the kirk, below the hill, 
 
 Below the lighthouse top. 
 
 The i.iari- The Sun Came up upon the left, 
 how the ship Out of the Sea came he ! 
 ward with'a And he shone bright, and on the right 
 and fair Went down into the sea. 
 
 weather, till 
 it reached 
 the Line. 
 
 Higher and higher every day, 
 
 Till over the mast at noon — 
 
 The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, 
 
 For he heard the loud bassoon. 
 
 The Wed- The bride hath paced into the hall, 
 
 ding-Guest „ , . , 
 
 heareth the Red as a rose IS she ; 
 
 music ; but Nodding their heads before her goes 
 
 the Mariner _,^ ... 
 
 contmueth Ihe merry ministrelsy. 
 
 his tale. ' ' 
 
 The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, 
 Yet he cannot choose but hear ; 
 And thus spake on that ancient man, 
 The bright-eyed Mariner. 
 
 The ship " And now the Storm-blast came, and he 
 
 drawn by a ,-^j , 
 
 storm to- Was tyranuous and strong : 
 south pole. He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 
 And chased us south along. 
 
 With sloping masts and dipping prow. 
 As who pursued with yell and blow 
 Still treads the shadow of his foe 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 And forward bends his head, 
 
 The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 
 
 And southward aye we fled. 
 
 And now there came both mist and snow. 
 And it grew wondrous cold : 
 And ice, mast-high, came floating by, 
 As green as emerald. 
 
 And through the drifts the ^nowy clifts 
 Did send a dismal sheen : 
 For shapes of men nor beasts we ken — 
 The ice was all between. 
 
 The ice was here, the ice was there. 
 
 The ice was aU around : 
 
 It cracked and growled, and roared and howled. 
 
 Like noises in a swound ! 
 
 203 
 
 The land of 
 ice and of 
 fearful 
 sounds, 
 where no 
 living thing 
 was to be 
 ssen. 
 
 At length did cross an Albatross, 
 Through the fog it came ; 
 As if it had been a Christian soul, 
 We hailed it in God's name. 
 
 It ate the food it ne'er had eat. 
 And round and round it flew. 
 The ice did split with a thunder-fit ; 
 The helmsman steered us through ! 
 
 And a good south wind sprung up behind ; 
 
 The Albatross did follow, 
 
 And every day, for food or play. 
 
 Came to the mariners' hollo ! 
 
 Till a great 
 sea-bird, 
 called the 
 Albatross, 
 came 
 
 through the 
 snow-fog, 
 and was re- 
 ceived with 
 great joy 
 and hospi- 
 tality. 
 
 And lo I the 
 Albatross 
 
 Eroveth a 
 ird of good 
 omen, and 
 followeth 
 the ship as it 
 returned 
 northward, 
 through fog 
 and floating 
 ice. 
 
204 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 
 
 It perched for vespers nine ; 
 
 Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 
 
 Glimmered the white Moon-shine." 
 
 The ancient " God savc thee, ancient Mariner, 
 inhospitably From the fiends, that plague thee thus ! — 
 pious bird of Why look'st thou so ? " — -"With my cross-bow 
 good omen. J ^j^^^ ^^^ Albatross. 
 
 PART THE SECOND 
 
 " The Sun now rose upon the right : 
 Out of the sea came he. 
 Still hid in mist, and on the left 
 Went down into the sea. 
 
 And the good south wind still blew behind, 
 But no sweet bird did follow, 
 Nor any day, for food or play, 
 Came to the mariners' hollo ! 
 
 His ship- And I had done an hellish thing, 
 Sft'tgatast And it would work 'em woe : 
 MaVneffor For all averred I had killed the bird 
 biid"of*good That made the breeze to blow, 
 lucii. j^^ wretch ! said they, the bird to slay. 
 
 That made the breeze to blow. 
 
 Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, 
 The glorious Sun uprist : 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 Then all averred I had killed the bird 
 That brought the fog and mist. 
 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, 
 That bring the fog and mist. 
 
 The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew. 
 The furrow followed free : 
 We were the first that ever burst 
 Into that silent sea. 
 
 Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 
 'Twas sad as sad could be ; 
 And we did speak only to break 
 The silence of the sea ! 
 
 205 
 
 But when 
 the fog 
 cleared oS, 
 they justify 
 the same, 
 and thus 
 make them- 
 selves ac- 
 complices in 
 the crime. 
 
 The fair 
 breeze con- 
 tinues ; the 
 ship enters 
 the Pacific 
 Ocean and 
 sails north- 
 ward, even 
 till it reaches 
 the Line. 
 
 The ship 
 hath been 
 suddenly be- 
 calmed. 
 
 AU in a hot and copper sky. 
 
 The bloody Sun, at noon, 
 
 Right up above the mast did stand. 
 
 No bigger than the Moon. 
 
 Day after day, day after day. 
 We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 Water, water, everywhere. 
 And all the boards did shrink ; 
 Water, water, everywhere. 
 Nor any drop to drink. 
 
 The very deep did rot : Christ ! 
 That ever this should be ! 
 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
 Upon the slimy sea. 
 
 And the 
 Albatross 
 begins to be 
 avenged. 
 
2o6 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 About, about, in reel and rout 
 The death-fires danced at night ; 
 The water, like a witch's oils, 
 Burnt green, and blue, and white. 
 
 A Spirit had And some in dreams assured were 
 theSrr'' one Of the Spirit that plagued us so : 
 ibie'tohabi- Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
 IriaMt?' ' '* From the land of mist and snow. 
 
 neither de- 
 parted souls nor angels ; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic 
 Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, 
 and there is no climate or element without one or more. 
 
 And every tongue, through utter drought, 
 Was withered at the root ; 
 We could not speak, no more than if 
 We had been choked with soot. 
 
 The ship- Ah ! well-a-day ! what evil looks 
 
 their sore Had I ftom old and young ! 
 
 would fain Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
 
 throw the , 
 
 whole guilt About mv neck was hung. 
 
 on the ' ^ 
 
 ancient 
 
 Mariner ; in 
 
 sign whereof 
 
 they hang 
 
 lud^'ro^T' PART THE THIRD 
 
 his neck. 
 
 "There passed a weary time. Each throat 
 Was parched, and glazed each eye. 
 A weary time ! a weary time ! 
 
 Srin^'be- How glazed each weary eye ! 
 
 si°^'in ?he When looking westward I beheld 
 
 element afar ^ something in the sky. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 At first it seemed a little speck, 
 And then it seemed a mist ; 
 It moved and moved, and took at last 
 A certain shape, I wist. 
 
 A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ! 
 And still it neared and neared : 
 As if it dodged a water-sprite, 
 It plunged and tacked and veered. 
 
 With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. 
 
 We could not laugh nor wail ; 
 
 Through utter drought all dumb we stood ! 
 
 I bit my arm, I sucked the blood. 
 
 And cried, A sail ! a sail ! 
 
 With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. 
 Agape they heard me call : 
 Gramercy ! they for joy did grin. 
 And all at once their breath drew in. 
 As they were drinking all. 
 
 207 
 
 At its nearer 
 approach, 
 it seemeth 
 him to be a 
 ship ; and at 
 a dear ran- 
 som he 
 freeth his 
 speech from 
 the bonds of 
 thirst. 
 
 A flash o{ 
 joy. 
 
 See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more ! 
 Hither to work us weal ; 
 Without a breeze, without a tide. 
 She steadies with upright keel ! 
 
 The western wave was aU a-flame. 
 
 The day was well-nigh done ! 
 
 Almost upon the western wave 
 
 Rested the broad, bright Sun ; 
 
 When that strange shape drove suddenly 
 
 Betwixt us and the Sun. 
 
 And horror 
 follows. 
 For can it be 
 a ship that 
 conies on- 
 ward with- 
 out wind or 
 tide? 
 
2o8 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 htaf'bTtt ^^^ Straight the Sun was flecked with bars 
 skeleton of (Heaven's Mother send us grace !), 
 
 As if through a dungeon-grate he peered 
 
 With broad and burning face. 
 
 Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud), 
 How fast she nears and nears ! 
 Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, 
 Like restless gossameres ? 
 
 And its ribs Are those her ribs through which the Sun 
 
 are seen as _ . , , , 
 
 bare on the Did peer, as through a grate ; 
 
 face of the . , ^ ' ,^, „ f , 
 
 setting Sun. And IS that Woman all her crew r 
 Woman and Is that 3 Death ? and are there two ? 
 mate, and Is Death that Woman's mate ? 
 
 no other, on 
 board the 
 
 ship. Like Her lips were red, her looks were free, 
 
 crew i' Her locks were yellow as gold : 
 
 Her skin was as white as leprosy. 
 The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she, 
 Who thicks man's blood with cold. 
 
 Death and The naked hulk alongside came, 
 
 Life-in- a i i • • j- 
 
 Death have And the twain were casting dice ; 
 
 the ship's ' The game is done ! I've won ! I've won ! ' 
 
 cj^iv And 
 
 she (the Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 
 
 latter) win- 
 neth the 
 
 ancient The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out ; 
 
 Manner. i j i 
 
 ,„ ^ At one stride comes the dark : 
 
 No twilight 
 
 within the With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, 
 
 courts o' _, , , , , 
 
 the Sun. Off shot the spectre-bark. 
 
 At the We listened and looked sideways up ! 
 the Moon, Fear at my heart, as at a cup. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 My life-blood seemed to sip ! 
 
 The stars were dim, and thick the night, 
 
 The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white ; 
 
 From the sails the dew did drip — 
 
 Till clomb above the eastern bar 
 
 The horned Moon, with one bright star 
 
 Within the nether tip.(') 
 
 209 
 
 One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, 
 Too quick for groan or sigh. 
 Each turned his face with a ghastly pang. 
 And cursed me with his eye. 
 
 One after 
 another, 
 
 Four times fifty living men 
 (And I heard nor sign nor groan). 
 With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, 
 They dropped down one by one. 
 
 His ship- 
 mates drop 
 down dead. 
 
 The souls did from their bodies fly — 
 They fled to bliss or woe ! 
 And every soul, it passed me by 
 Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! " 
 
 But Life-in- 
 Death be- 
 gins her 
 work on the 
 ancient 
 Mariner. 
 
 PART THE FOURTH 
 
 " I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner ! 
 
 I fear thy skinny hand ! 
 
 And thou art long, and lank, and brown. 
 
 As is the ribbed sea-sand.('') 
 
 H 
 
 The Wed- 
 ding-Guest 
 feareth tha t 
 a spirit is 
 tallcing to 
 him. 
 
210 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 I fear thee, and thy glittering eye, 
 And thy skinny hand, so brown." — 
 
 But the an- " Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest ! 
 
 ner assureth This body dropt not down. 
 
 him of his 
 
 bodily life, 
 
 and pro- 
 
 ceedeth to ,, „ , 
 
 relate his Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
 
 homble . , . , 
 
 penance. Alone on a wide, wide sea ! 
 
 And never a saint took pity on 
 My soul in agony. 
 
 He de- The many men, so beautiful ! 
 ma'tures of And they all dead did lie ; 
 *^ ' And a thousand thousand slimy things 
 Lived on : and so did L 
 
 And en- I looked upon the rotting sea, 
 thiy should And drew my eyes away ; 
 80 m^y I looked upon the rotting deck, 
 "° '^"'^- And there the dead men lay. 
 
 I locked to heaven, and tried to pray ; 
 But or ever a prayer had gusht, 
 A wicked whisper came, and made 
 My heart as dry as dust. 
 
 I closed my lids, and kept them close. 
 
 And the balls like pulses beat ; 
 
 For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky, 
 
 Lay like a load on my weary eye, 
 
 And the dead were at my feet. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 
 Nor rot nor reek did they : 
 The look with which they looked on me 
 Had never passed away. 
 
 211 
 
 But the 
 curse liveth 
 for him in 
 the eye of 
 the dead 
 men. 
 
 An orphan's curse would drag to hell 
 
 A spirit from on high ; 
 
 But oh ! more horrible than that 
 
 Is a curse in a dead man's eye ! 
 
 Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, 
 
 And yet I could not die. 
 
 The moving Moon went up the sky. 
 And nowhere did abide ; 
 Softly she was going up. 
 And a star or two beside — 
 
 In his lone- 
 liness and 
 fixedness he 
 yeameth to- 
 wards the 
 journeying 
 Moon, and 
 
 the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward ; and evezywhere the blue sky belongs 
 to them, and is their appointed rest and their native country and their own natural 
 homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet 
 there is a silent joy at their arrival. 
 
 Her beams bemocked the sultry main. 
 
 Like April hoar-frost spread ; 
 
 But where the ship's huge shadow lay. 
 
 The charmed water burnt alway 
 
 A still and av/ful red. 
 
 Beyond the shadow of the ship, 
 
 I watched the water-snakes : 
 
 They moved in tracks of shining white. 
 
 And when they reared, the elfish light 
 
 Fell off in hoary flakes. 
 
 By the 
 light ot the 
 Moon he 
 beholdeth 
 God's crea- 
 tures of the 
 great calm. 
 
212 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 Within the shadow of the ship 
 
 I watched their rich attire : 
 
 Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, 
 
 They coiled and swam ; and every track 
 
 Was a flash of golden fire. 
 
 Their happy living things ! no tongue 
 
 beauty and rj., ■ i . • u. A 1 
 
 their bappi- Iheir beauty might declare: 
 
 A spring of love gushed from my heart. 
 He biesseth And I blessed them unaware ! 
 
 them in his /^ , . ^ . , . 
 
 heart. Dure my kind saint took pity on me. 
 
 And I blessed them unaware. 
 
 The speu The selfsame moment I could pray ; 
 break. And from my neck so free 
 
 The Albatross fell off, and sank 
 
 Like lead into the sea. 
 
 PART THE FIFTH 
 
 ! SLEEP it is a gentle thing. 
 Beloved from pole to pole ! 
 To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 
 She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, 
 That slid into my soul. 
 
 By grace of The siUy buckets on the deck, 
 
 Mother, the That had so long remained, 
 
 Mariner is I dreamt that they were filled with dew ; 
 
 with rain. And when I awoke, it rained. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 
 My garments all were dank ; 
 Sure I had drunken in my dreams, 
 And still my body drank. 
 
 I moved, and could not feel my limbs : 
 I was so light — almost 
 I thought that I had died in sleep. 
 And was a blessed ghost. 
 
 And soon I heard a roaring wind : 
 It did not come anear ; 
 But with its sound it shook the sails. 
 That were so thin and sere. 
 
 213 
 
 He heareth 
 sounds and 
 seeth 
 strange 
 sights and 
 commotions 
 in the^ky 
 and tlic ele- 
 ment. 
 
 The upper air burst into life ; 
 And a hundred fire-flags sheen ; 
 To and fro they were hurried about ! 
 And to and fro, and in and out. 
 The wan stars danced between. 
 
 And the coming wind did roar more loud, 
 
 And the sails did sigh like sedge ; 
 
 And the rain poured down from one black cloud ; 
 
 The Moon was at its edge. 
 
 The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 
 The Moon was at its side ; 
 Like waters shot from some high crag, 
 The lightning fell with never a jag, 
 A river steep and wide. 
 
214 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 The bodies The loud wind never reached the ship, 
 
 of the ship's ■,. i i • n i 
 
 crew are in- Yet now the ship moved on ! 
 
 the ship Beneath the lightning and the Moon 
 
 moves on. ^_,, , _ 
 
 Ihe dead men gave a groan. 
 
 They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 
 Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ; 
 It had been strange, even in a dream, 
 To have seen those dead men rise. 
 
 The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; 
 
 Yet never a breeze up-blew ; 
 
 The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, 
 
 Where they were wont to do ; 
 
 They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 
 
 We were a ghastly crew. 
 
 The body of my brother's son 
 Stood by me, knee to knee : 
 The body and I pulled at one rope. 
 But he said nought to me." 
 
 But not by " I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! "" 
 the men, nor " Be Calm, thou Wedding-Guest ! 
 of earth or 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 
 
 middle air, , , .... . 
 
 but by a Which to their corses came again, 
 
 blessed -. ,...,, 
 
 troop of But a troop of spirits blest : 
 
 angelic 
 
 spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint. 
 
 For when it dawned — they dropped their arms 
 And clustered round the mast ; 
 Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, 
 And from their bodies passed. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 
 Then darted to the Sun ; 
 Slowly the sounds came back again. 
 Now mixed, now one by one. 
 
 Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 
 I heard the skylark sing ; 
 Sometimes all little birds that are. 
 How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
 With their sweet jargoning ! 
 
 And now 'twas like all instruments, 
 Now like a lonely flute ; 
 And now it is an angel's song, 
 That makes the heavens be mute. 
 
 215 
 
 It ceased ; yet still the sails made on 
 
 A pleasant noise till noon, 
 
 A noise like of a hidden brook 
 
 In the leafy month of June, 
 
 That to the sleeping woods all night 
 
 Singeth a quiet tune. 
 
 Till noon we quietly sailed on. 
 Yet never a breeze did breathe : 
 Slowly and smoothly went the ship. 
 Moved onward from beneath. 
 
 Under the keel nine fathom deep, 
 From the land of mist and snow. 
 The Spirit slid : and it was he 
 That made the ship to go. 
 The sails at noon left off their tune, 
 And the ship stood still also. 
 
 The lone- 
 some Spirit 
 from the 
 South Pole 
 carries on 
 the ship as 
 far as the 
 Line, in 
 obedience to 
 the aneelic 
 troop, but 
 still re- 
 quiteth 
 vengeance. 
 
21 6 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 The Sun, right up above the mast, 
 Had fixed her to the ocean : 
 But in a minute she 'gan stir, 
 With a short uneasy motion — 
 Backwards and forwards half her length 
 With a short uneasy motion. 
 
 Then like a pawing horse let go, 
 She made a sudden bound : 
 It flung the blood into my head, 
 And I fell down in a swound. 
 
 The Polar How long in that same fit I lay, 
 fen'ow-' I have not to declare ; 
 
 dfcmons, the t> t • i • r ^ j 
 
 Invisible in- But ere my living life returned, 
 
 habitants ofri j j* ij* j 
 
 the element, I heard, and in my soul discerned 
 
 take part in ^t» • ■ ^l_ • 
 
 his wrong; iwo voices in tile alt. 
 
 and two of 
 them relate, 
 
 other, that ' Is it he ? ' quoth one, ' Is this the man ? 
 
 penance t i 
 
 long and By Him who died on cross, 
 
 the ancient With his ctuel bow he laid full low 
 
 Mariner _, , , _ , 
 
 hath been ihe harmless Albatross. 
 
 accorded to 
 the Polar 
 Spirit, who 
 
 so'uth'w'ard '^^^ Spirit who bideth by himself 
 In the land of mist and snow. 
 He loved the bird that loved the man 
 Who shot him with his bow.' 
 
 The other was a softer voice. 
 
 As soft as honey-dew : 
 
 Quoth he, ' The man hath penance done, 
 
 And penance more will do.' 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 217 
 
 PART THE SIXTH 
 (vv. 92-97 omitted) 
 I WOKE, and we were sailing on The super- 
 
 A • 1 1 natural 
 
 As m a gentle weather : motion is re- 
 
 'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high ; .Mariner 
 
 tr-t 11 11 awakes, and 
 
 ihe>^ead men stood together. ws penance 
 
 begins anew. 
 
 All stood together on the deck. 
 For a charnel-dungeon fitter : 
 All fixed on me their stony eyes, 
 That in the Moon did glitter. 
 
 The pang, the curse, with which they died. 
 Had never passed away : 
 I could not draw my eyes from theirs, 
 Nor turn them up to pray. 
 
 And now this spell was snapt : once more The curse is 
 
 T . 11 finally expl- 
 
 1 Viewed the ocean green, ated. 
 
 And looked far forth, yet little saw 
 Of what had else been seen — 
 
 Like one, that on a lonesome road 
 Doth walk in fear and dread. 
 And having once turned round, walks on 
 And turns no more his head ; 
 Because he knows a frightful fiend 
 Doth close behind him tread. 
 
 But soon there breathed a wind on me. 
 Nor sound nor motion made : 
 Its path was not upon the sea. 
 In ripple or in shade. 
 
21 8 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 
 Like a meadow-gale of spring — 
 It mingled strangely with my fears, 
 Yet it felt like a welcoming. 
 
 Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 
 Yet she sailed softly too : 
 Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 
 On me alone it blew. 
 
 Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed 
 The lighthouse top I see ? 
 
 is this the kirk ? 
 
 And the 
 
 ancient 
 
 Mariner 
 
 beholdeth ,. , . , ■ .,, , 
 
 his native Is thlS the hill ? 
 
 country. ^ i • • ^ 
 
 Is this mine own countree ? 
 
 (vv. 107-109 omitted) 
 
 And the bay was white with silent light. 
 
 Till rising from the same. 
 The angelic Full many shapes, that shadows were, 
 tSr^ad*^" In crimson colours came. 
 
 bodies. 
 
 And appear A little distance from the prow 
 forms^Sf"'™ Those crimson shadows were: 
 '* ■ I turned my eyes upon the deck — 
 
 Oh, Christ ! what saw I there ! 
 
 Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat. 
 And, by the holy rood ! 
 A man all light, a seraph-man. 
 On every corse there stood. 
 
 This seraph-band, each waved his hand : 
 It was a heavenly sight ! 
 They stood as signals to the land. 
 Each one a lovely light : 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 219 
 
 This seraph-band, each waved his hand, 
 No voice did they impart — 
 No voice ; but O, the silence sank 
 Like music on my heart. 
 
 But soon I heard the dash of oars, 
 I heard the Pilot's cheer ; 
 My head was turned perforce away, 
 And I saw a boat appear. 
 
 The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy, 
 I heard them coming fast : 
 Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy 
 The dead men could not blast. 
 
 I saw a third — I heard his voice : 
 
 It is the Hermit good ! 
 
 He singeth loud his godly hymns 
 
 That he makes in the wood. 
 
 He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away 
 
 The Albatross's blood. 
 
 PART THE SEVENTH 
 (vv. 118-132 omitted) 
 Since then, at an uncertain hour. And ever 
 
 fT^i , and anon 
 
 1 hat agony returns ; throughout 
 
 And till my ghastly tale is told, lill an agony 
 
 rrti • 1 ^ '^i^' 1 constraineth 
 
 This heart within me burns. him to travel 
 
 from land to 
 land. 
 
 I pass, like night, from land to land ; 
 I have strange power of speech ; 
 
220 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 And to 
 teach, by 
 his own ex- 
 ample, love 
 and re- 
 verence to 
 all things 
 that God 
 made and 
 loveth. 
 
 That moment that his face I see, 
 I know the man that must hear me ; 
 To him my tale I teach. 
 
 (vv. 135-138 omitted) 
 
 Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
 To thee, thou Wedding-Guest ! 
 He prayeth well, who loveth well 
 Both man and bird and beast. 
 
 He prayeth best, who loveth best 
 All things both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all." 
 
 The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 
 Whose beard with age is hoar, 
 Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest 
 Turned from the bridegroom's door. 
 
 He went like one that hath been stunned. 
 And is of sense forlorn : 
 A sadder and a wiser man. 
 He rose the morrow morn. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 221 
 
 ex 
 
 ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION 
 
 Do you ask what the birds say ? The sparrow, the dove, 
 
 The linnet and thrush say, " I love and I love ! " 
 
 In the winter they're silent— the wind is so strong ; 
 
 What it says I dont know, but it sings a loud song. 
 
 But green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, 
 
 And singing, and loving — all come back together. 
 
 But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love. 
 
 The green fields below him, the blue sky above. 
 
 That he sings, and he sings ; and for ever sings he — 
 
 " I love my love, and my Love loves me ! " 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 (1770-1850) 
 
 CXI 
 
 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 sequestred 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 
 
 In joy of voice and pinion ! 
 Thou, Linnet, in thy green array. 
 Presiding Spirit here to-day. 
 Dost lead the revels of the May ; 
 
 And this is thy dominion. 
 
 While birds, and butterflies, and flowers 
 Make all one band of paramours. 
 Thou, ranging up and down thy bowers, 
 
 Art sole in thy employment ; 
 A Life, a Presence like the air, 
 Scattering thy gladness without care, 
 Too blest with any one to pair ; 
 
 Thyself thy own enjoyment.{') 
 
WILLIAM WORDSV/ORTH 223 
 
 Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, 
 That twinkle to the gusty breeze, 
 Behold him perched in ecstasies, 
 
 Yet seeming still to hover ; 
 There ! where the flutter of his wings 
 Upon his back and body flings 
 Shadows and sunny glimmerings 
 
 That cover him all over ! 
 
 My dazzled sight he oft deceives, 
 A Brother of the dancing leaves ; 
 Then flits, and from the cottage eaves 
 
 Pours forth his song in gushes ; 
 As if by that exulting strain 
 He mocked and treated with disdain 
 The voiceless Form he chose to feign 
 
 While fluttering in the bushes. 
 
224 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 cxn 
 TO THE CUCKOO * 
 
 BLITHE new-comer ! I have heard, 
 I hear thee and rejoice : 
 
 O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird, 
 Or but a wandering Voice ? 
 
 When I am lying on the grass, 
 Thy twofold shout I hear ; 
 
 From hUl to hiU it seems to pass, 
 At once far off and near. 
 
 Though babbling only to the vale 
 Of sunshine and of flowers, 
 
 Thou bringest unto me a tale 
 Of visionary hours. 
 
 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 
 I listened to ; that Cry 
 
 Which made me look a thousand ways 
 In bush, and tree, and sky. 
 
 To seek thee did I often rove 
 
 Through woods and on the green ; 
 
 And thou wert stiU a hope, a love ; 
 Still longed for, never seen ! 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 225 
 
 And I can listen to thee yet ; 
 
 Can lie upon the plain 
 And listen, tiU I do beget 
 
 That golden time again. 
 
 blessed bird ! the earth we pace 
 
 Again appears to be 
 An unsubstantial, fairy place 
 
 That is fit home for thee ! 
 
 IS 
 
226 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 CXIII 
 
 TO THE CUCKOO* 
 
 Not the whole warbling grove in concert heard 
 
 When sunshine follows shower, the breast can thrill 
 
 Like the first summons, Cuckoo ! of thy bill. 
 
 With its twin notes inseparably paired. 
 
 The captive 'mid damp vaults unsunned, unaired, 
 
 Measuring the periods of his lonely doom. 
 
 That cry can reach ; and to the sick man's room 
 
 Sends gladness, by no languid smile declared. 
 
 The eagle-face through hostile search 
 
 May perish ; time may come when never more 
 
 The wilderness shall hear the lion roar ; 
 
 But long as cock shall crow from household perch 
 
 To rouse the dawn, soft gales shall speed thy wing, 
 
 And thy erratic voice be faithful to the Spring ! 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 227 
 
 CXIV 
 
 THE WILD DUCK'S NEST* 
 
 The imperial Consort of the Fairy-King 
 
 Owns not a sylvan bower, or gorgeous cell 
 
 With emerald floored, and with purpureal shell 
 
 Ceilinged and roofed, that is so fair a thing 
 
 As this low structure, for the tasks of Spring 
 
 Prepared by one who loves the buoyant swell 
 
 Of the brisk waves, yet here consents to dwell ; 
 
 And spreads in steadfast peace her brooding wing. 
 
 Words cannot paint the o'ershadowing yew-tree bough. 
 
 And dimly-gleaming nest — a hoUow crown 
 
 Of golden leaves inlaid with silver down, 
 
 Fine as the mother's softest plumes allow : 
 
 I gazed — and self-accused while gazing, sighed 
 
 For human-kind, weak slaves of cumbrous pride ! 
 
228 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 cxv 
 
 TO THE SKYLARK 
 
 Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 
 Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? 
 Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 
 Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ? 
 Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 
 Those quivering wings composed, that music stUl ! 
 
 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. 
 
 Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; 
 
 A privacy of glorious light is thine. 
 
 Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 
 
 Of harmony, with instinct more divine ; 
 
 Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam — 
 
 True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.(') 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 229 
 
 CXVI 
 
 THE TROSSACHS* 
 
 There's not a nook within this solemn Pass, 
 
 But were an apt confessional for One 
 
 Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, 
 
 That life is but a tale of morning grass 
 
 Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase 
 
 That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes 
 
 Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, 
 
 Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass 
 
 Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest. 
 
 If from a golden perch of aspen spray 
 
 (October's workmanship to rival May) 
 
 The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast 
 
 That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay. 
 
 Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest ! 
 
230 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 CXVII 
 
 WATER FOWL* 
 
 Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood, 
 
 With grace of motion that might scarcely seem 
 
 Inferior to the angelical, prolong 
 
 Their curious pastime ! shaping in mid air 
 
 (And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars 
 
 High as the level of the mountain tops) 
 
 A circuit ampler than the lakes beneath 
 
 Their own domain ; but ever while intent 
 
 On tracing and retracing that large round, 
 
 Their jubilant activity evolves 
 
 Hundreds of curves and circles, to and fro. 
 
 Upward and downward, progress intricate 
 
 Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed 
 
 Their undefatigable flight. 'Tis done ! 
 
 Ten times or more, I fancied it had ceased ; 
 
 But lo ! the vanished company again 
 
 Ascending, they approach — I hear their wings 
 
 Faint, faint at first ; and then an eager sound. 
 
 Past in a moment, and as faint again ! 
 
 They tempt the sun to sport amid their plumes ; 
 
 They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice 
 
 To show them a fair image ; — 'tis themselves. 
 
 Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain, 
 
 Painted more soft and fair as they descend 
 
 Almost to touch ; then up again aloft. 
 
 Up with a sally and a flash of speed, 
 
 As if they scorned both resting-place and rest. 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 231 
 
 CXVIII 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 Nightingale ! thou surely art 
 A creature of a " fiery heart " : — 
 
 These notes of thine — they pierce and pierce ; 
 
 Tumultuous harmony and fierce ! 
 
 Thou sing'st as if the God of wine 
 
 Had helped thee to a Valentine ; 
 
 A song in mockery and despite 
 
 Of shades and dews, and silent night ; 
 
 And steady bliss, and all the loves 
 
 Now sleeping in these peaceful groves. 
 
 1 heard a Stock-dove (') sing or say 
 His homely tale, this very day ; 
 His voice was buried among trees, 
 Yet to be come-at by the breeze : 
 
 He did not cease ; but cooed — and cooed ; 
 And somewhat pensively he wooed : 
 He sang of love, with quiet blending, 
 Slow to begin and never ending ; 
 Of serious faith and inward glee ; 
 This was the song — the song for me ! 
 
232 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 CXIX 
 
 EAGLES * 
 
 {Composed at DunolUe Castle in the Bay of Oban) 
 
 Dishonoured Rock and Ruin ! that, by law 
 
 Tyrannic, keep the Bird of Jove embarred 
 
 Like a lone criminal whose life is spared. 
 
 Vexed is he, and screams loud. The last I saw 
 
 Was on the wing ; stooping, he struck with awe 
 
 Man, bird and beast ; then, with a consort paired, 
 
 From a bold headland, their loved eerie's guard, 
 
 Flew high above Atlantic waves, to draw 
 
 Light from the fountain of the setting sun. 
 
 Such was this Prisoner once ; and, when his plumes 
 
 The sea-blast ruffles as the storm comes on. 
 
 Then, for a moment, he, in spirit resumes 
 
 His rank 'mong freeborn creatures that live free, 
 
 His power, his beauty, and his majesty. 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL 
 (i 777-1 844) 
 
 cxx 
 
 THE PARROT* 
 
 A PARROT, from the Spanish main, 
 
 Full young and early caged came o'er. 
 
 With bright wings to the bleak domain 
 Of Mulla's shore. 
 
 To spicy groves where he had won 
 His plumage of resplendent hue, 
 
 His native fruits, and skies, and sun, 
 He bade adieu. 
 
 For these he changed the smoke of turf, 
 A heathery land and misty sky, 
 
 And turned on rocks and raging surf 
 His golden eye. 
 
 But petted in our climate cold, 
 
 He lived and chattered many a day : 
 
 Until with age, from green and gold 
 His wings grew grey. 
 
 At last when blind, and seeming dumb, 
 
 He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more, 
 
 A Spanish stranger chanced to come 
 To Mulla's shore ; 
 
 He hailed the bird in Spanish speech. 
 The bird in Spanish speech replied ; 
 
 Flapped round the cage with joyous screech, 
 Propt down, and died. 
 ?33 
 
SAMUEL ROGERS 
 (1763-1855) 
 
 CXXI 
 
 EPITAPH ON A ROBIN REDBREAST* 
 
 Tread lightly here, for here, 'tis said, 
 When piping winds are hushed around, 
 A small note wakes from underground, 
 Where now his tiny bones are laid. 
 No more in lone or leafless groves. 
 With ruffled wing and faded breast. 
 His friendless, homeless spirit roves ; 
 Gone to the world where birds are blest ! 
 Where never cat glides o'er the green. 
 Or school-boy's giant form is seen (') ; 
 But love, and joy, and smiling Spring 
 Inspire their little souls to sing. 
 
 234 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 (i 809-1 849) 
 
 CXXII 
 
 THE RAVEN* 
 
 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak 
 
 and weary, 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a 
 
 tapping, 
 As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber 
 
 door. 
 " 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber 
 
 door — 
 
 Only this and nothing more." 
 
 Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, 
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon 
 
 the floor. 
 Eagerly I wished the morrow — vainly I had sought to 
 
 borrow 
 From my books surcease of surrow — sorrow for the lost 
 
 Lenore — 
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name 
 
 Lenore — 
 
 Nameless here for evermore. 
 
 And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
 Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt 
 
 before : 
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood 
 
 repeating, 
 " 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber 
 
 door — 
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door — 
 This it is and nothing more." 
 235 
 
236 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 Presently my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
 " Sir," said I, " or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came 
 
 rapping. 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber 
 
 door. 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you " Here I opened 
 
 wide the door — 
 
 Darkness there and nothing more. 
 
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wonder- 
 ing, fearing, 
 
 Doubtless, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream 
 before ; 
 
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no 
 token, 
 
 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word 
 " Lenore ! "— 
 
 Merely this and nothing more. 
 
 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me 
 
 burning. 
 Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than 
 
 before. 
 " Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window 
 
 lattice ; 
 Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery 
 
 explore — 
 Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore — 
 'Tis the wind and nothing more." 
 
 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and 
 
 flutter, 
 In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore — 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE 237 
 
 Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopped or 
 
 stayed he ; 
 But, with mien of lord or lady perched above my chamber 
 
 door — 
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber 
 
 door — 
 
 Perched and sat and nothing more. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it 
 
 wore, 
 " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, 
 
 " art sure no craven. 
 Ghastly grim and ancient Raven, wandering from the 
 
 nightly shore — 
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian 
 
 shore ! " 
 
 Quoth the Raven -^ " Nevermore." 
 
 Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so 
 
 plainly, 
 Though its answer little meaning — ^little relevancy bore ; 
 For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being 
 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber 
 
 door — 
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber 
 
 door, 
 
 With such name as " Nevermore." 
 
 But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke 
 
 only 
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
 Nothing further then he uttered ; not a feather then he 
 
 fluttered — 
 
238 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends have 
 
 flown before — 
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown 
 
 before ! " 
 
 Then the bird said : " Nevermore." 
 
 Startled at the stUlness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
 " Doubtless," said I. " What it utters is its only stock 
 
 and store. 
 Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful 
 
 disaster 
 Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden 
 
 bore — 
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 
 Of " Never — nevermore." 
 
 But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling. 
 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and 
 
 bust, and door ; 
 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of 
 
 yore — 
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous 
 
 bird of yore 
 
 Meant in croaking " Nevermore." 
 
 Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
 
 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's 
 core ; 
 
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease re- 
 clining. 
 
 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated 
 o'er. 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE 239 
 
 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating 
 o'er, 
 
 She shall press, ah, nevermore ! 
 
 Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an 
 
 unseen censer 
 Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted 
 
 floor. 
 " Wretch," I cried, " thy God hath lent thee— by these 
 
 angels he hath sent thee. 
 Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of 
 
 Lenore ! 
 Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost 
 
 Lenore ! " 
 
 Quoth the Raven : " Nevermore." 
 
 " Prophet," said I, " thing of evil ; — prophet still, if bird 
 or devil ! 
 
 Whether Tempter sent, or whether Tempest tossed thee 
 here ashore, 
 
 Desolate, yet aU undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-^ 
 
 On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I im- 
 plore — 
 
 Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell me, I 
 implore ! " 
 
 Quoth the Raven : " Nevermore." 
 
 " Prophet," said I, " thing of evil — prophet still, if bird or 
 
 devil ! 
 By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we 
 
 both adore — 
 Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant 
 
 Aiden, 
 
240 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name 
 
 ' Lenore ' — 
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name 
 
 Lenore." 
 
 Quoth the Raven : " Nevermore." 
 
 " Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I 
 
 shrieked, upstarting — 
 " Get thee back into the tempest, and the Night's Plutonian 
 
 shore ! 
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath 
 
 spoken ! 
 Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my 
 
 door ! — 
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from 
 
 off my door ! " 
 
 Quoth the Raven : " Nevermore." 
 
 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 
 On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door ; 
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is 
 
 dreaming, 
 And the lamplight o'er him streaming, throws his shadow 
 
 on the floor ; 
 And my soul, from out that shadow that lies floating on 
 
 the floor. 
 
 Shall be lifted — nevermore. 
 
GEORGE DARLEY 
 (i 795-1846) 
 
 CXXIII 
 
 THE HOOPOE* 
 
 Solitary wayfarer ! 
 Minstrel winged of the green wild ! 
 What dost thou delaying here, 
 Like a wood-bewildered child 
 Weeping to his far-flown troop, 
 Whoop ! and plaintive whoop ! and whoop ? 
 Now from rock and now from tree, 
 Bird ! methinks thou whoop'st to me, 
 Flitting before me upward still 
 With clear warble, as I've heard 
 Oft on my native Northern hiU 
 No less wild and lone a bird, 
 Luring me with his sweet chee-chee 
 Up the mountain crags which he 
 Tript as lightly as a bee, 
 O'er steep pastures, far among 
 Thickets and briary lanes along. 
 Following still a fleeting song ! 
 If such my errant nature, I 
 Vainly to curb or coop it try 
 Now that the sun-drop through my frame 
 Kindles another soul of flame ! 
 Whoop on, whoop on, thou canst not wing 
 Too fast or far, thou weU-named thing. 
 Hoopoe, if of that tribe which sing 
 Articulate in the desert ring ! 
 
 16 241 
 
242 GEORGE DARLEY 
 
 CXXIV 
 
 THE PHGENIX* 
 
 BLEST unfabled Incense Tree, 
 That burns in glorious Araby, 
 With red scent chalicing the air, 
 Till earth-life grow Elysian there ! 
 
 Half buried to her flaming breast 
 In this bright tree, she makes her nest. 
 Hundred-sunn' d Phoenix ! when she must 
 Crumble at length to hoary dust ! 
 
 Her gorgeous death-bed ! her rich pyre 
 Burnt up with aromatic fire ! 
 Her urn sight-high from spoiler men ! 
 Her birthplace when self-born again ! 
 
 The mountainless green wilds among. 
 Here ends she her unechoing song ! 
 With amber tears and odorous sighs 
 Mourn' d by the desert where she dies ! 
 
 Laid like the young fawn mossily 
 In sun-green vales of Araby, 
 
 1 woke hard by the Phcsnix tree 
 
 That with shadeless boughs flamed over me, 
 And upward call'd for a dumb cry 
 With moonbroad orbs of wonder I 
 Beheld the immortal Bird on high 
 Glassing the great sun in her eye. 
 Stedfast she gazed upon his fire, — 
 StUl her destroyer and her sire ! — 
 
GEORGE DARLEY 243 
 
 As if to his her soul of flame 
 Had flown already whence it came ; 
 Like those that sit and glare so still, 
 Intense with their death struggle, till 
 We touch, and curdle at their chill ! — 
 But breathing yet whUe she doth burn. 
 The deathless Daughter of the sun ! 
 Slowly to crimson embers turn 
 The beauties of the brightsome one. 
 O'er the broad nest her silver wings 
 Shook down their wasteful glitterings ; 
 Her brinded neck high-arch' d in air 
 Like a small rainbow faded there ; 
 But brighter glow'd her plumy crown 
 Mouldering to golden ashes down ; 
 With fume of sweet woods, to the skies. 
 Pure as a Saint's adoring sighs, 
 Warm as a prayer in Paradise, 
 Her life-breath rose in sacrifice ! 
 The while with shrill triumphant tone 
 Sounding aloud, aloft, alone, 
 Ceaseless her joyful death wail she 
 Sang to departing Araby ! 
 
 fast her amber blood doth flow 
 
 From the heart-wounded Incense Tree, 
 
 Fast as earth's deep-embosom'd woe 
 In silent rivulets to the sea ! 
 
 Beauty may weep her fair first-born. 
 Perchance in as resplendent tears. 
 
 Such golden dewdrops bow the corn 
 When the stern sickleman appears : 
 
244 GEORGE DARLEY 
 
 But ! such perfume to a bower 
 Never allured sweet-seeking bee, 
 
 As to sip fast that nectarous shower 
 A thirstier minstrel drew in me ! 
 
THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES 
 (i 803-1 849) 
 
 cxxv 
 
 WOLFRAM'S SONG* 
 
 Old Adam, the carrion crow, 
 
 The old crow of Cairo ; 
 He sat in the shower, and let it flow 
 Under his tail and over his crest ; 
 And through every feather 
 Leak'd the wet weather ; 
 And the bough swung under his nest ; 
 For his beak it was heavy with marrow ; 
 Is that the wind dying ? no ; 
 It's only two devils, that blow 
 Through a murderer's bones, to and fro. 
 In the ghosts' moonshine. 
 
 Ho, Eve, my grey carrion wife, 
 
 When we have supped on kings' marrow. 
 Where shall we drink and make merry our life ? 
 Our nest it is Queen Cleopatra's skull, 
 'Tis cloven and crack' d. 
 And batter'd and hack'd, 
 But with tears of blue eyes it is full ; 
 Let us drink then, my raven of Cairo ! 
 Is that the wind dying ? no ; 
 It's only two devils, that blow 
 Through a murderer's bones, to and fro. 
 In the ghosts' moonshine. 
 
 245 
 
FRANCIS ADAMS 
 (i 862-1 893) 
 
 CXXVI 
 
 THE RAPE OF THE NEST* 
 
 In early spring I watched two sparrows build, 
 And then their nest within the thickest hedge 
 Construct, two small dear mates within whose life 
 And love, foreshadowed and foreshadowing, I 
 Had some sweet underpart. And so at last 
 The little round blue eggs were laid, and her post 
 The mother brooding kept, while far and wide 
 He sought the food for both, or, weariness 
 Compelling her, he changed and kept his post 
 Within the nest, and she flew forth in turn. 
 
 One day, a schoolboy, or some other, came 
 And caught her, took the eggs, and tore the nest. 
 And went his way. Then, as I stood looking 
 Through gathering tears and sobs, all swiftly winged. 
 Food-bearing, came the lover back, and flew 
 Into the thickest hedge. How shall we say 
 How the sweet mate lost for ever, the ruined home. 
 And the hope of young, with all life's life and light 
 Quenched at a moment for ever, were to him ? 
 For grief like this grows dumb, deeper than words. 
 And man and animal are only one. 
 
 246 
 
JOHN CLARE 
 (1 793-1 864) 
 
 CXXVII 
 
 THE THRUSH'S NEST 
 
 Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush 
 
 That overhung a molehill large and round, 
 I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush 
 
 Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound 
 With joy ; and, often an intruding guest, 
 
 I watched her secret toils from day to day — 
 How true she warped the moss, to form a nest. 
 
 And modelled it within with wood and clay ; 
 And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew. 
 
 There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, 
 Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue ; 
 
 And there I witnessed in the sunny hours 
 A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, 
 
 Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky. 
 
 247 
 
248 JOHN CLARE 
 
 cxxvm 
 
 EMMONSAIL'S HEATH IN WINTER 
 
 I LOVE to see the old heath's withered brake 
 Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling, 
 WhUe the old heron from the lonely lake 
 Starts slow and flaps his melancholy wing, 
 And oddling crow in idle motions swing 
 On the half rotten ashtree's topmost twig, 
 Beside whose trunk the gipsy makes his bed. 
 Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig 
 Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread, 
 The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn 
 And for the awe round fields and closen rove. 
 And coy bumbarrels (') twenty in a drove 
 Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain 
 And hang on little twigs and start again. 
 
JOHN CLARE 249 
 
 CXXIX 
 
 LITTLE TROTTY WAGTAIL * 
 
 Little trotty wagtail he went in the rain, 
 And tittering, tottering sideways he ne'er got straight again, 
 He stooped to get a worm, and looked up to get a fly. 
 And then he flew away ere his feathers they were dry. 
 
 Little trotty wagtail, he waddled in the mud, 
 And left his little footmarks, trample where he would. 
 He waddled in the water-pudge, and waggle went his tail 
 And chirrupt up his wings to dry upon the garden rail. 
 
 Little trotty wagtail, you nimble all about, 
 And in the dimpling water-pudge you waddle in and out ; 
 Your home is nigh at hand, and in the warm pig-stye. 
 So little Master Wagtail, I'll bid you a good-bye. 
 
250 JOHN CLARE 
 
 cxxx 
 
 THE SKYLARK * 
 
 Above the russet clods the corn is seen 
 
 Sprouting its spiry points of tender green, 
 
 Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake, 
 
 Like some brown clod the harriers failed to break. 
 
 Opening their golden caskets to the sun. 
 
 The buttercups make schoolboys eager run, 
 
 To see who shall be first to pluck the prize — 
 
 Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies, 
 
 And o'er her half-formed nest, with happy wings, 
 
 Winnows the air till in the cloud she sings. 
 
 Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies. 
 
 And drops and drops till in her nest she lies. 
 
 Which they unheeded passed — not dreaming then 
 
 That birds, which flew so high, would drop again 
 
 To nests upon the ground, which anything 
 
 May come at to destroy. Had they the wing 
 
 Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud 
 
 And build on nothing but a passing cloud ! 
 
 As free from danger as the heavens are free 
 
 From pain and toil, there would they build and be, 
 
 And sail about the world to scenes unheard 
 
 Of and unseen, — were they but a bird ! 
 
 So think they, while they listen to its song, 
 
 And smile and fancy and so pass along ; 
 
 While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn. 
 
 Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn. 
 
JOHN CLARE 251 
 
 CXXXI 
 
 FROM "SPEAR THISTLE" 
 
 The pewit, swopping up and down 
 
 And screaming round the passer bye, 
 
 Or running o'er the herbage brown 
 With copple crown uplifted high, 
 
 Loves in its clumps to make a home 
 
 Where danger seldom cares to come. 
 
 The yellowhammer, often prest 
 
 For spot to build and be unseen. 
 Will in its shelter trust her nest 
 
 When fields and meadows glow with green ; 
 And larks, though paths go closely bye, 
 Will in its shade securely lie. 
 
 The partridge too, that scarce can trust 
 
 The open downs to be at rest. 
 Will in its clumps lie down, and dust 
 
 And prune its horseshoe-circled breast. 
 And oft in shining fields of green 
 Will lay and raise its brood unseen. 
 
 The sheep when hunger presses sore 
 May nip the clover round its nest ; 
 
 But soon the thistle wounding sore 
 
 Relieves it from each brushing g\iest. 
 
 That leaves a bit of wool behind, 
 
 The yellowhammer loves to find. 
 
252 JOHN CLARE 
 
 The horse will set his foot and bite 
 
 Qose to the ground lark's guarded nest 
 
 And snort to meet the prickly sight ; 
 
 He fans the feathers of her breast — 
 
 Yet thistles prick so deep that he 
 
 Turns back and leaves her dwelling free. 
 
JOHN CLARE 253 
 
 CXXXII 
 
 FROM "SONG'S ETERNITY"* 
 
 Mighty songs that miss decay, 
 
 What are they ? 
 Crowds and cities pass away 
 
 Like a day. 
 Books are out and books are read ; 
 
 What are they ? 
 Years will lay them with the dead — • 
 
 Sigh, sigh; 
 Trifles unto nothing wed, 
 
 They die. 
 
 Dreamers, mark the honey bee ; 
 
 Mark the tree 
 Where the blue cap " tootle tee " 
 
 Sings a glee 
 Sung to Adam and to Eve — 
 
 Here they be. 
 When floods covered every bough, 
 
 Noah's ark 
 Heard that ballad, singing now ; 
 
 Hark, hark, 
 
 " Tootle tootle tootle tee " — 
 
 Can it be 
 Pride and fame must shadows be ? 
 
 Come and see — 
 Every season own her own ; 
 
 Bird and bee 
 Sing creation's music on ; 
 
 Nature's glee 
 Is in every mood and tone 
 
 Eternity. 
 
254 JOHN CLARE 
 
 CXXXIII 
 
 THE FIRETAIL'S NEST 
 
 " Tweet," pipes the robin as the cat creeps by 
 
 Her nestling young that in the elderns lie, 
 
 And then the bluecap tootles in its glee, 
 
 Picking the flies from orchard apple tree, 
 
 And " pink " the chaffinch cries its well-known strain, 
 
 Urging its kind to utter " pink " again, 
 
 While in a quiet mood hedgesparrows try 
 
 An inward stir of shadowed melody. 
 
 Around the rotten tree the firetail mourns 
 
 As the old hedger to his toil returns, 
 
 Chopping the grain to stop the gap close by 
 
 The hole where her blue eggs in safety lie. 
 
 Of everything that stirs she dreameth wrong 
 
 And pipes her " tweet tut " fears the whole day long. 
 
JOHN CLARE 255 
 
 CXXXIV 
 
 QUAIL'S NEST* 
 
 I WANDERED out One rainy day 
 
 And heard a bird with merry joys 
 
 Cry " wet my foot " for half the way ; 
 I stood and wondered at the noise, 
 
 When from my foot a bird did flee — 
 
 The rain flew bouncing from her breast — 
 
 I wondered what the bird could be, 
 And almost trampled on her nest. 
 
 The nest was full of eggs and round — 
 
 I met a shepherd in the vales. 
 And stood to tell him what I found. 
 
 He knew and said it was a quail's. 
 
 For he himself the nest had found, 
 
 Among the wheat and on the green, 
 
 When going on his daily round. 
 With eggs as many as fifteen. (') 
 
 Among the stranger birds they feed, 
 
 Their summer flight is short and low ; 
 
 There's very few know where they breed, 
 And scarcely any where they go. 
 
2S6 JOHN CLARE 
 
 cxxxv 
 THE YELLOWHAMMER 
 
 When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen, 
 
 And yellowhammers gathering.the dry bents 
 By the dyke-side, on stilly moor or fen, 
 
 Feathered with love and nature's good intents f 
 Rude is the tent this architect invents, 
 
 Rural the place, with cart ruts by dyke side. 
 Dead grass, horse hair, and downy-headed bents 
 
 Tied to dead thistles — she doth well provide, 
 Qose to a hiU of ants where cowslips bloom 
 
 And shed o'er meadows far their sweet perfume. 
 In early spring, when winds blow chilly cold. 
 
 The yellowhammer, trailing grass, will come 
 To fix a place and choose an early home. 
 
 With yellow breast and head of solid gold.(') 
 
JOHN CLARE 257 
 
 CXXXVI 
 
 BIRDS, WHY ARE YE SILENT?* 
 
 Why are ye silent, 
 
 Birds ? Where do ye fly ? 
 Winter's not violent, 
 
 With such a Spring sky. 
 The wheatlands are green, snow and frost are away ; 
 Birds, why are ye silent on such a sweet day ? 
 
 By the slated pig-stye, 
 
 The redbreast scarce whispers : 
 Where last Autumn's leaves lie, 
 The hedgesparrow just lispers. 
 And why are the chaffinch and bullfinch so still. 
 While the sulphur primroses bedeck the wood hUl ? 
 
 The bright yellowhammers — 
 
 Are strutting about, 
 All stiU, and none stammers 
 A single note out. 
 From the hedge starts the blackbird, at brookside to drink : 
 I thought he'd have whistled, but he only said " prink." 
 
 The tree-creeper hustles 
 Up fir's rusty bark ; 
 All silent he bustles ; 
 
 We needn't say hark. 
 There's no song in the forest, in field or in wood. 
 Yet the sun gilds the grass as though come in for good. 
 
 17 
 
2S8 JOHN CLARE 
 
 How bright the odd daisies 
 Peep under the stubbs ! 
 How bright pilewort blazes 
 Where ruddled sheep rubs 
 The old willow trunk by the side of the brook 
 Where soon for blue violets the children will look. 
 
 By the cot green and mossy 
 Feed sparrow and hen : 
 On the ridge brown and glossy 
 They chuck now and then. 
 The wren cocks his tail o'er his back by the stye, 
 Where his green bottle nest wUl be made by and by. 
 
 Here's bunches of chickweed, 
 
 With small starry flowers, 
 Where redcaps (^) oft pick seeds 
 In hungry spring hours ; 
 And bluecap and blackcap, (') in glossy spring coat. 
 Are a-peeping in buds without singing a note. 
 
 Why silent should birds be 
 
 And sunshine so warm ? 
 Larks hide where the herds be 
 By cottage and farm. 
 If wild flowers were blooming and fully set in the spring, 
 May-be all the birdies would cheerfully sing. 
 
JOHN CLARE 259 
 
 CXXXVII 
 
 TO THE LARK* 
 
 I 
 Bird of the morn, 
 When roseate clouds begin 
 
 To show the opening dawn, 
 Thy singing does begin, 
 And o'er the sweet green fields and happy vales 
 Thy pleasant song is heard, mixed with the morning gales. 
 
 2 
 Bird of the morn. 
 What time the ruddy sun 
 
 Smiles on the pleasant corn 
 Thy singing is begun. 
 Heartfelt and cheering over labourers' toil. 
 Who chop in coppice wild and delve the russet soil. 
 
 3 
 Bird of the sun. 
 How beautiful art thou ! 
 
 When morning has begun 
 To gild the mountain's brow. 
 How beautiful it is to see thee soar so blest, 
 Winnowing thy russet wings above thy twitchy nest. 
 
 4 
 Bird of the summer's day. 
 How oft I stand to hear 
 
 Thee sing thy airy lay, 
 With music wild and clear, 
 Till thou become a speck upon the sky. 
 Small as the clods that crumble where I lie. 
 
26o JOHN CLARE 
 
 5 
 Thou bird of happiest song, 
 The spring and summer too 
 
 Are thine, the months along. 
 The woods and vales to view. 
 If climes were evergreen thy song would be 
 The sunny music of eternal glee. 
 
•JOHN CLARE 261 
 
 CXXXVIII 
 
 LOVE'S CONSTANCY* 
 
 The dove shall be a hawk in kind, 
 
 The cuckoo change its tune, 
 
 The nightingale at Christmas sing, 
 
 The fieldfare come in June, 
 
 Ere I do change my love for thee. 
 
 These things shall change as soon. 
 
 So keep your heart at ease, my love, 
 
 Nor waste a joy for me ; 
 
 I'll ne'er prove false to thee, my Ibve, 
 
 Till fish drown in the sea. 
 
 And birds forget to fly, my love, 
 
 And then I'll think of thee. 
 
 The redcock's wing may turn to grey, 
 
 The crow's to silver white. 
 
 The night itself may be for day, 
 
 And sunshine wake at night 
 
 Till then — and then I'll prove more true 
 
 Than nature, life, and light. 
 
ELIZA COOK 
 (i 8 1 8-1 889) 
 
 CXXXIX 
 
 THE SONG OF THE CARRION CROW * 
 
 My roost is the creaking gibbet's beam, 
 
 Where the murderer's bones swing bleaching ; 
 
 Where the chattering chain rings back again 
 To the night-wind's desolate screeching. 
 
 To and fro, as the fierce gusts blow, 
 
 Merrily rocked am I ; 
 And I note with delight the traveller's fright, 
 
 As he cowers and hastens by. 
 
 I have fluttered where secret work has been done. 
 
 Wrought with a trusty blade ; 
 But what did I care, whether foul or fair. 
 
 If I shared the feast it made f 
 
 I plunged my beak in the marbling cheek, 
 I perched on the clammy brow, 
 
 And a dainty treat was that fresh meat 
 To the greedy Carrion Crow. 
 
 I have followed the traveller dragging on 
 O'er the mountains long and cold : 
 
 For I knew at last he must sink in the blast, 
 Though spirit was never so bold. 
 
 He fell, and slept like a fair young bride, 
 
 In his winding sheet of snow ; 
 And quickly his breast had a table guest 
 
 In the hungry Carrion Crow. 
 262 
 
ELIZA COOK 263 
 
 Famine and Plague bring joy to me, 
 
 For I love the harvest they yield ; — ■ 
 
 And the fairest sight I ever see 
 Is the crimson battle-field. 
 
 Far and wide is my charnel range, 
 
 And rich carousel I keep, 
 TiU back I come to my gibbet's home, 
 
 To be merrily rocked to sleep. 
 
 When the world shall be spread with tombless dead 
 
 And darkness shroud all below. 
 What triumph and glee to the last will be 
 
 For the sateless Carrion Crow ! 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 
 (1806-1861) 
 
 CXL 
 
 FAREWELLS FROM PARADISE : BIRD-SPIRIT 
 
 I AM the nearest nightingale 
 
 That singeth in Eden after you ; 
 
 And I am singing loud and true, 
 
 And sweet, — I do not fail. 
 
 I sit upon a cypress bough, 
 
 Close to the gate, and I fling my song 
 
 Over the gate and through the mail 
 
 Of the warden angels marshall'd strong, — ■ 
 
 Over the gate and after you ! 
 
 And the warden angels let it pass. 
 
 Because the poor brown bird, alas, 
 
 Sings in the garden, sweet and true. 
 And I build my song of high pure notes, 
 Note after note, height over height, 
 Till I strike the arch of the Infinite, 
 And I bridge abysmal agonies 
 With strong clear calms of harmonies, — 
 And something abides, and something floats. 
 In the song which I sing after you. 
 Fare ye well, farewell ! 
 
 The creature-sounds, no longer audible. 
 
 Expire at Eden's door. 
 
 Each footstep of your treading 
 
 Treads out some cadence which ye heard before. 
 
 Farewell ! the birds of Eden 
 
 Ye shall hear nevermore. 
 
 264 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 (l 8 1 2-1 889) 
 
 CXLI 
 
 THIS IS A SPRAY ... * 
 
 This is a spray the bird clung to, 
 
 Making it blossom with pleasure, 
 Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, 
 Fit for her nest and her treasure. 
 Oh, what a hope beyond measure 
 Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,- 
 So to be singled out, built in and sung to ! 
 
 263 
 
"OWEN MEREDITH" 
 (1803-1873) 
 
 CXLII 
 
 THE EAGLE'S JOURNEY* 
 
 From this grey crag in ether islanded, 
 
 I once at dawn, before the dark was done. 
 
 Full east my solitary pinions spread, 
 
 Seelcing the sunken sources of the sun. 
 
 Chill o'er me hung the icy heavens, all black 
 
 Behind their fretted webs of fluttering gold. 
 
 Beneath me growl'd the grey unbottomed sea. 
 
 Inwardly shuddering. O'er her monstrous back 
 
 With restless weary shrugs in rapid fold 
 
 Her many-wrinkled mantle shifted she ; 
 
 And scraped her craggy bays, and fiercely flung 
 
 Their stones about, and scraped them back again ; 
 
 Gnawing and licking with mad tooth and tongue 
 
 The granite guardians of her drear domain. 
 
 Faint in transparent twilight where I gazed, 
 
 Hover'd a far-off flakelet of firm land. 
 
 Barely chin-high above the waters raised. 
 
 Peered the pale forehead of that spectral strand. 
 
 Thither I winged my penetrative flight : 
 
 The phantom coast, uncoiling many a twist 
 
 Of ghostly cable, as a diver might. 
 
 Swam slowly out to meet me, moist with spray. 
 
 But, ere I reach' d it, like a witch, the night 
 
 Had melted, first into a mist 
 
 Of melancholy amethyst. 
 
 Then utterly away. 
 
 And all around me was the large clear light 
 
 And crystal calm of the capacious day. 
 
 266 
 
HENRY KINGSLEY 
 (i 830-1 876) 
 
 CXLIII 
 
 MAGDALEN* 
 
 Magdalen at Michael's gate 
 
 Tirled at the pin ;(') 
 On Joseph's thorn sang the blackbird, 
 
 " Let her in ! Let her in ! " 
 
 " Hast thou seen the wounds ? " said Michael, 
 
 " Know'st thou thy sin ? " 
 " It is evening, evening," sang the blackbird, 
 
 " Let her in ! Let her in ! " 
 
 " Yes, I have seen the wounds. 
 
 And I know my sin." 
 '^She knows it well, well, well," sang the blackbird, 
 
 " Let her in ! Let her in ! " 
 
 " Thou bringest no offerings," said Michael. 
 
 " Nought save sin." 
 And the blackbird sang, " She is sorry, sorry, sorry. 
 
 Let her in ! Let her in ! " 
 
 When he had sung himself to sleep. 
 
 And night did begin, 
 One came and open'd Michael's gate. 
 
 And Magdalen went in. 
 
 267 
 
SYDNEY DOBELL 
 (i 824-1 874) 
 
 CXLIV 
 
 THE SWALLOW* 
 
 Swallow, that yearly art blown round the world, 
 
 What seekest thou that never may be found ? 
 
 Whither for ever sailing and to sail ? 
 
 I think the gulfs have sucked thine haven down. 
 
 And thou still steerest for the vanished strand 
 
 What cheer, what cheer ! oh fairy marinere (') 
 
 Of windy billows, sea-mew of the air f 
 
 The viewless oceans wash thee to and fro. 
 
 Spout thee to Heaven, and dive thee to the deep : 
 
 Swallow, I also seek and do not find. 
 
 268 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 (1 794-1 878) 
 
 CXLV 
 
 TO A WATERFOWL* 
 
 Whither, midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy solitary way ? 
 
 Vainly the fowler's eye 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong. 
 As, darkly seen against the crimson sky. 
 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide. 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 
 On the chafed ocean-side ? 
 
 There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
 The desert and illimitable air-^ 
 
 Lone-wandering but not lost. 
 
 All day thy wings have fanned. 
 At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 
 Though the dark night is near. 
 
 And soon that toil shall end ; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest 
 And scream among thy fellows, reeds shall bend 
 
 Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. 
 269 
 
270 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 Thou'art gone — the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 He who, from zone to zone, 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone. 
 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
JAMES THOMSON 
 (1834-1882) 
 
 CXLVI 
 
 THE CARRIER-DOVE* 
 
 If you have a carrier-dove 
 
 That can fly over land and sea ; 
 
 And a message for your Love, 
 " Lady, I love but thee ! " 
 
 And this dove will never stir. 
 But straight from her to you. 
 
 And straight from you to her ; 
 As you know and she knows too. 
 
 Wni you first ensure, sage, 
 Your dove that never tires 
 
 With your message in a cage, 
 Though a cage of golden wires ? 
 
 Or will you fling your dove : 
 " Fly, darling, without rest, 
 
 Over land and sea to my Love, 
 
 And fold your wings in her breast ? 
 
 ■«7i 
 
WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 
 (1 842-1917) 
 
 CXLVII 
 
 SEMI-CHORUS OF THRUSHES, LINNETS, AND 
 BLACKCAPS 
 
 WINDLESS haven of delight ! 
 equal bliss of day and night ! 
 O rest of birds ! what songs suffice 
 To exalt thy glories, Paradise ? 
 Here in clear streams aU day we dip 
 Our beaks, yet suffer from no pip. 
 No longer over-cold or wet 
 Do we feel heart-ache, care, or fret. 
 Our throat and eye are ever clear ; 
 Nor do we moult for all the year. 
 
 Here neither drought nor deluge breeds 
 Harsh competition for the seeds ; 
 Nor, as on earth in winters rough, 
 Do insects fail : all find enough. 
 Ripe berries here abound, to feast 
 AU souls, the greatest and the least : 
 The ruddy fruit unguarded drops ; 
 And here, for the grain-loving crops, 
 Are seeds of every size and shape. 
 The oily hemp and the sweet rape ; 
 And, for the slender biUs and small. 
 Fresh flies and gnats ambrosial. 
 Here in the moonlight prowls no stoat. 
 The burglar of the sleeping cote. 
 The very birds, which seemed on earth 
 Bandits and cannibals by birth, 
 Dwell here in brotherhood, alike 
 The owl, the sparrow-hawk, the shrike. 
 272 
 
WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 273 
 
 The pies, once gluttons, no more strive 
 Upon their neighbours' eggs to thrive ; 
 And even the cuckoo has confessed, 
 And, honest housewife, builds a nest. 
 
 Four months in roost and darkness run ; 
 Four months we feel perpetual sun ; 
 Ere he be risen, in dale and grove. 
 We through the twilight sing of Love ; 
 And while he slowly downward goes. 
 We hymn the pleasures of Repose. 
 So dwells each soul that sings or flies 
 In our terrestrial Paradise. 
 
 18 
 
274 WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 
 
 CXLVIII 
 
 THE SONG OF MAN* 
 
 Man that is born of a woman, 
 
 Man, her un-web-footed drake, 
 Featherless, beakless, and human. 
 
 Is what he is by mistake. 
 For they say that a sleep fell on Nature, 
 
 In midst of the making of things ; 
 And she left him a two-legged creature, 
 
 But wanting in wings. 
 
 Chorus 
 Kluk-uk-uk ! kio ! coo ! 
 Peeweet ! caw, caw ! cuckoo ! 
 Tio ! tuwheet ! tuwhoo ! pipitopan ! 
 ChiUy, unfeathered, wingless, short-tethered, 
 Restless, bird-nestless, unfortunate Man ! 
 
 Nightingale 
 
 Gold he pursues like a shadow ; 
 
 Then, as he grasps at his goal. 
 Far, afar off, El-Dorado 
 
 Shines like a star on his soul. 
 So his high expectation brings sorrow. 
 
 And plenty increases his needs ; 
 But the birds took no thought for the morrow, 
 
 Secure of their seeds. 
 
 Chorus 
 Kluk-uk-uk ! etc. 
 
 Man the great sailor, petty retailer. 
 Wealthy, unhealthy, luxurious Man ! 
 
WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 275 
 
 Nightingale 
 
 Therefore his heart, unforgiving, 
 
 Grudged us the down on our coats. 
 
 Envied the ease of our living, 
 Hated the tune in our notes ; 
 
 And he snared us, too careless and merry, 
 Or compassed our death with his gun, 
 
 As we wheeled round the currant and cherry. 
 Or bathed in the sun. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Kluk-uk-uk ! etc. 
 
 Close-fisted warden, pest of the garden. 
 
 Hooting, thrush-shooting, malevolent Man ! 
 
 Nightingale 
 
 Though not a sigh float hither, 
 
 Crossing the circle of snows. 
 Deem not below us fair v/eather 
 
 Gladdens mankind with repose. 
 Still the wages of earth he is winning. 
 
 Lamentation, and labour, and pain ; 
 As it was in the very beginning. 
 
 And so shall remain. (') 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Kluk-uk-uk ! etc. 
 
 Monarch of reason, slave of each season. 
 
 Wizened, imprisoned, ex-Paradised Man ! 
 
2/6 WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 
 
 CXLIX 
 
 BIRDS ARE SEEN APPROACHING IN THE 
 AIR CARRYING NESTS FULL OF EGGS 
 IN THEIR BEAKS * 
 
 The Birds in kind have each obeyed 
 The Monarch, and their eggs have laid. 
 Now they fly hither two and two, 
 The nightingale, the plain cuckoo. 
 The jay in crimson clad and blue, 
 Robin in scarlet livery seen. 
 And woodpecker in Lincoln green. 
 And martin with white satin vest, 
 And peewit proud of soldier crest. 
 Blackcap with eye in merry mood 
 Twinkling beneath his velvet hood. 
 And jackdaw with his sable mate. 
 But gray and reverent both in pate ; 
 Besides all kinds of beak and wing. 
 That walk, and hop, and fly, and sing. 
 Within their beaks round nests they bear. 
 One on each side, aloft in air. 
 Compact of softest moss and wool, 
 Well-wov'n and warm, of eggs brimful — 
 Beautiful eggs, oval and bright 
 In the green shell, or smooth and white. 
 Like opals clear against the light. 
 Or blue as skies that summer crown. 
 Or toned to modest russet brown, 
 Or else to olive verging more. 
 And with dark mottling dappled o'er. 
 
WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 277 
 
 But delicately >as might twin 
 
 Soft freckles on a woman's skin ; 
 
 In orderly procession straight, 
 
 They seek our iceberg with their freight. 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 (i 822-1 888) 
 
 CL 
 
 PHILOMELA * 
 
 Hark ! ah the Nightingale ! 
 
 The tawny-throated ! 
 Hark ! from that moonlit cedar what a burst ! 
 
 What triumph ! hark — what pain ! 
 
 O Wanderer from a Grecian shore, 
 
 Still, after many years, in distant lands, 
 
 StUl nourishing in thy bewUder'd brain 
 
 That wUd, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain- 
 Say, will it never heal ? 
 And can this fragrant lawn 
 With its cool trees, and night. 
 And the sweet tranquil Thames, 
 And moonshine, and the dew. 
 To thy rack'd heart and brain 
 Afford no balm ? 
 
 Dost thou to-night behold 
 Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, 
 The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild ? 
 Dost thou again peruse 
 With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 
 The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister's shame ? 
 Dost thou once more assay 
 Thy flight, and feel come over thee. 
 Poor Fugitive, the feathery change 
 Once more, and once more seem to make resound 
 With love and hate, triumph and agony. 
 Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale ? 
 Listen, Eugenia — 
 278 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 279 
 
 How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves ! 
 Again — thou hearest ! 
 Eternal Passion ! 
 Eternal Pain ! 
 
28o MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 CLI 
 
 " THE BLOOM IS GONE ..." * 
 
 So, some tempestuous morn in early June, 
 When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, 
 
 Before the roses and the longest day — 
 When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor, 
 
 With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May, 
 And chestnut-flowers are strewn — 
 So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, 
 
 From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, 
 
 Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze : 
 The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I. 
 
 Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go ? 
 
 Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, 
 Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, 
 
 Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, 
 
 Sweet-William with its homely cottage smell, 
 And stocks in fragrant blow ; 
 
 Roses that down the alleys shine afar. 
 And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, 
 And groups under the dreaming garden-trees. 
 
 And the full moon, and the white evening star. 
 
 He hearkens not ! light comer, he is flown ! 
 What matters it ? next year he will return. 
 
 And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days, 
 With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern. 
 And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways. 
 And scent of hay new-mown. . . . 
 
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM 
 (i 824-1 889) 
 
 CLII 
 
 THE LOVER AND BIRDS* 
 
 Within a budding grove, 
 
 In April's ear sang every bird his best, 
 But not a song to pleasure my unrest 
 
 Or touch the tears unwept of bitter love ; 
 Some spake methought with pity, some as if in jest. 
 To every word 
 Of every bird 
 I listened, or replied as it behove. 
 
 Screamed Chaffinch, " Sweet, sweet, sweet ! 
 Pretty lovey, come and meet me here ! " 
 " Chaffinch," quoth I, " be dumb awhile, in fear 
 
 Thy darling prove no better than a cheat, 
 And never come, or fly when wintry days appear." 
 Yet from a twig, 
 With voice so big 
 The little fowl his utterance did repeat. 
 
 Then I, " The man forlorn 
 
 Hears Earth send up a foolish noise aloft." 
 "And what'll he do ? What'U he do ? " scoffed 
 The Blackbird, standing in an ancient thorn, 
 Then spread his sooty wings and flitted to the croft, 
 With cackling laugh ; 
 Whom I, being half 
 Enraged, called after, giving back his scorn. 
 
 Worse mocked the Thrush, " Die ! die ! 
 0, could he do it ? Could he do it ? Nay ! 
 281 
 
282 WILLIAM ALLINGHAM 
 
 Be quick ! be quick ! Here, here, here ! " (went his lay) 
 " Take heed ! take heed ! " then, " Why ? why ? why ? 
 
 why ? why ? 
 See-ee now ! see-ee now ! " (he drawled) 
 " Back ! back ! back ! R-r-r-run away ! " 
 thrush, be still ! 
 Or at thy will 
 Seek some less sad interpreter than I. 
 
 " Air, air ! blue air and white ! 
 Whither I flee, whither, whither, whither I flee ! " 
 (Thus the Lark hurried, mounting from the lea) 
 
 " Hills, countries, many waters glittering bright 
 Whither I see, whither I see ! deeper, deeper, deeper, 
 whither I see, see, see ! " 
 
 « Gay Lark," I said, 
 " The song that's bred 
 In happy nest may well to heaven take flight." 
 
 "There's something, something sad 
 I half remember " — piped a broken strain. 
 Well sung, sweet Robin ! Robin sung again. 
 
 " Spring's opening, cheerily, cheerily ! be we glad ! " 
 Which moved, I wist not why, me melancholy mad, 
 Till now, grown meek. 
 With wetted cheek. 
 Most comforting and gentle thoughts I had. 
 
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM 283 
 
 CLIII 
 
 A MEMORY * 
 
 Four ducks on a pond, 
 A grass-bank beyond, 
 A blue sky of spring, 
 White clouds on the wing : 
 What a little thing 
 To remember for years — 
 To remember with tears , 
 
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER 
 (i 808-1 879) 
 
 CLIV 
 
 BIRD-NESTING * 
 
 Ah ! that half bashful and half eager face ! 
 
 Among the trees thy Guardian- Angel stands, 
 
 With his heart beating, lest thy little hands 
 
 Should come among the shadows and efface 
 
 The stainless beauty of a life of love, 
 
 And childhood innocence — for hark, the boys 
 
 Are peering through the hedgerows and the grove, 
 
 And ply their cruel sport with mirth and noise ; 
 
 But thou hast conquer'd ! and dispell'd his fear ; 
 
 Sweet is the hope thy youthful pity brings — 
 
 And oft, methinks, if thou shalt shelter here, 
 
 When these blue eggs are linnets' throats and wings, 
 
 A secret spell shall bring about the tree 
 
 The little birds that owed their lives to thee. 
 
 284 
 
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER 285 
 
 CLV 
 
 ON STARTLING SOME PIGEONS* 
 
 A HUNDRED wings are dropt as soft as one, 
 Now ye are lighted ! Pleasing to my sight 
 The fearful circle of your wandering flight, 
 Rapid and loud, and drawing homeward soon ; 
 And then, the sober chiding of your tone. 
 As there ye sit, from your own roofs arraigning 
 My trespass on your haunts, so boldly done, 
 Sounds like a solemn and a just complaining : 
 O happy, happy race ! for though there clings 
 A feeble fear about your timid clan, 
 Yet are ye blest ! with not a thought that brings 
 Disquietude, — while proud and sorrowing man. 
 An eagle, weary of his mighty wings, 
 With anxious inquest fill's his mortal span ! 
 
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 (i 828-1 882) 
 
 CLVI 
 
 SUNSET WINGS* 
 
 I 
 
 To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings 
 
 Cleaving the western sky ; 
 Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings 
 Of birds ; as if the day's last hour in rings 
 
 Of strenuous flight must die. 
 
 Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway 
 
 Above the dovecote-tops ; 
 And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day. 
 Sink, clamorous, like mill-waters, at wild play, 
 
 By turns in every copse : 
 
 3 
 Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives, — 
 
 Save for the whirr within. 
 You could not tell the starlings from the leaves ; 
 Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves 
 
 Away with all its din. 
 
 4 
 Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight. 
 
 To many a refuge tend ; 
 With the first light she laughed, and the last light 
 Glows round her still ; who natheless in the night 
 At length must make an end. 
 286 
 
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 287 
 
 5 
 And now the mustering rooks innumerable 
 
 Together sail and soar, 
 While for the day's death, like a tolling knell. 
 Unto the heart they seem to cry, Farewell, 
 
 No more, farewell, no more ! 
 
 6 
 
 Is Hope not plumed, as 'twere a fiery dart ? 
 
 And oh ! thou dying day. 
 Even as thou goest must she too depart. 
 And Sorrow fold such pinions on the heart 
 
 As will not fly away I 
 
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 
 (i 809-1 892) 
 
 CLVII 
 
 THE EAGLE 
 
 He clasps the crag with crooked hands ; 
 
 Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
 
 Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 
 
 The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ; 
 He watches from his mountain walls, 
 And like a thunderbolt he falls. 
 
 388 
 
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 289 
 
 CLVIII 
 
 THE WHITE OWL* 
 
 When cats run home and light is come. 
 And dew is on the ground, 
 
 And the far-off stream is dumb. 
 
 And the whirring sail goes round, 
 And the whirring sail goes round, 
 
 Alone and warming his five wits 
 
 The white owl in the belfry sits. 
 
 When merry milkmaids click the latch. 
 And rarely smells the new-mown hay. 
 
 And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch 
 Twice or thrice his roundelay, 
 Twice or thrice his roundelay, 
 
 Alone and warming his five wits 
 
 The white owl in the belfry sits. 
 
 19 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 (i 8 1 9-1 892) 
 
 CLIX 
 
 ••OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY 
 ROCKING"* 
 Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, 
 Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle. 
 Out of the Ninth-month midnight, 
 Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the 
 
 child, leaving his bed, wander'd alone, bareheaded, 
 
 barefoot, 
 Down from the shower'd halo, 
 Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting 
 
 as if they were alive. 
 Out from the patches of briers and blackberries. 
 From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, 
 From your memories, sad brother, from the fitful risings 
 
 and fallings I heard. 
 From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen and swollen 
 
 as if with tears. 
 From those beginning notes of sickness and love there in 
 
 the transparent mist, 
 From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, 
 From the myriad thence-aroused words. 
 From the word stronger and more delicious than any. 
 From such, as now they start the scene revisiting, 
 As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, 
 Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, 
 A man, — yet by these tears a little boy again. 
 Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, 
 I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter. 
 Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond 
 
 them, 
 A reminiscence sing. 
 
 290 
 
WALT WHITMAN 291 
 
 Once Paumanok, 
 
 When the snows had melted — when the lilac scent was in 
 the air, and Fifth-month grass was growing, 
 
 Up this sea-shore in some briers, 
 
 Tvvo guests from Alabama, two together, 
 
 And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with 
 brown, 
 
 And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, 
 
 And every day the she-bird, crouch'd on her nest, silent, 
 with bright eyes, 
 
 And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never dis- 
 turbing them, 
 
 Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. 
 
 Shine ! shine ! shine ! 
 
 Pout down your warmth, great sun J 
 
 While we bask, we two together. 
 
 Two together! 
 
 Winds blow south, or winds blow north. 
 Day come white, or night come black, 
 Home, or rivers and mountains from home. 
 Singing all time, minding no time. 
 While we two keep together. 
 
 Till of a sudden, 
 
 May-be killed, unknown to her mate. 
 
 One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest, 
 
 Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next. 
 
 Nor ever appear'd again. 
 
 And thenceforward, all summer, in the sound of the sea, 
 And at night, under the full of the moon, in calmer weather. 
 
292 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Over the hoarse surging of the sea, 
 
 Or flitting from brier to brier by day, 
 
 I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one, the he-bird. 
 
 The solitary guest from Alabama. 
 
 Blow ! blow ! blow ! 
 
 Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore ! 
 
 I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me. 
 
 Yes, when the stars glisten' d, 
 
 All night long, on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake, 
 
 Down almost amid the slapping waves, 
 
 Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears. 
 
 He called on his mate. 
 
 He poured forth the meanings which I, of all men, know. 
 
 Yes, my brother, I know ; 
 
 The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note ; 
 
 For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach 
 
 gliding, 
 Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the 
 
 shadows, 
 Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds 
 
 and sights after their sorts. 
 The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, 
 I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair. 
 Listen' d long and long. 
 
 Listen' d, to keep, to sing — now translating the notes, 
 Following you, my brother. 
 
WALT WHITMAN 293 
 
 Soothe ! soothe ! soothe ! 
 
 Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, 
 
 And again another behind, embracing and lapping, every one 
 
 close. 
 But my love soothes not me, not me. 
 
 Low hangs the moon — it rose late ; 
 
 it is lagging— I think it is heavy with love, with love. 
 
 madly the sea pushes, pushes upon the land. 
 With love — with love. 
 
 night ! do I not see my love fluttering out there among the 
 
 breakers ? 
 What is that little black thing I see there in the white ? 
 
 Loud! loud! loud! 
 
 Loud I call to you, my love ! 
 
 High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves ; 
 
 Surely you must know who is here, is here ; 
 
 Tou must know who I am, my love. 
 
 Low-hanging moon ! 
 
 What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow ? 
 
 it is the shape, the shape of my mate ! 
 
 moon, do not keep her from me any longer. 
 
 Land ! land ! land ! 
 
 Whichever way I turn, I think you could give me my mate 
 
 back again, if you only would; 
 For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. 
 
 rising stars! 
 
 Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some 
 of you. 
 
294 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 throat ! trembling throat ! 
 
 Sound clearer through the atmosphere ! 
 
 Pierce the woods, the earth ; 
 
 Somewhere listening to catch you, must he the one I want. 
 
 Shake out, carols ! 
 
 Solitary here, the nights carols ! 
 
 Carols of lonesome love ! Death's carols ! 
 
 Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon ! 
 
 0, under that moon, where she droops almost down into the 
 
 sea ! 
 reckless, despairing carols ! 
 
 But soft! sink low; 
 Soft ! let me fust murmur ; 
 
 And do you wait a moment, you husky-noised sea ; 
 For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me. 
 So faint I must he still, be still to listen ; 
 But not altogether still, for then she might not come immedi- 
 ately to me. 
 
 Hither, my love ! 
 
 Here I am ! here ! 
 
 With this fust-sustain! d note I announce myself to you ; 
 
 This gentle call is for you, my love, for you. 
 
 Do not be decoyed elsewhere : 
 That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice ; 
 That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray ; 
 Those are the shadows of leaves. 
 
 darkness ! in vain ! 
 
 0, I am very sick and sorrowful! 
 
WALT WHITMAN 295 
 
 brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the 
 
 sea ! 
 troubled reflection in the sea ! 
 throat/ throbbing heart! 
 all — and I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night ! 
 
 Yet I murmur, murmur on. 
 
 murmurs — you yourselves make me continue to sing, I know 
 not why J 
 
 past ! life ! songs of joy ! 
 In the air, in the woods, over fields ; 
 Loved ! loved ! loved ! loved ! loved ! 
 But my love no more, no more with me ! 
 We two together no more. 
 
 The aria sinking; 
 
 All else continuing, the stars shining, 
 
 The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing, 
 
 With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly 
 
 moaning. 
 On the sands of Paumanok's shore, gray and rustling: 
 The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, 
 
 the face of the sea almost touching ; 
 The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his 
 
 hair the atmosphere dallying. 
 The love in the heart long-pent, now loose, now at last 
 
 tumultuously bursting. 
 The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, 
 The strange tears down the cheeks coursing. 
 The coUoquy there, the trio, each uttering. 
 The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying, 
 
296 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown' d 
 
 secret hissing, 
 To the outsetting bard of love. 
 
 Demon or bird ! (said the boy's soul,) 
 
 Is it indeed toward your mate you sing f or is it mostly 
 
 to me ? 
 For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, 
 Now I have heard you. 
 
 Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake. 
 And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, 
 
 louder and more sorrowful than yours, 
 A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, 
 Never to die. 
 
 O you singer, solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me ; 
 solitary me, listening, never more shall I cease per- 
 petuating you ; 
 Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, 
 Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, 
 Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before 
 
 what there, in the night, 
 By the sea, under the yellow and sagging moon, 
 The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within. 
 The unknown want, the destiny of me ! 
 
 O give me the clue ! (it lurks in the night here somewhere ;) 
 
 O if I am to have so much, let me have more ! 
 
 a word ! what is my destination ? (I fear it is hence- 
 forth chaos ;) 
 
 how joys, dreads, convolutions, human shapes, and all 
 shapes, spring as from graves around me ! 
 
 phantoms ! you cover all the land and all the sea ! 
 
 I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown 
 upon me ; 
 
WALT WHITMAN 297 
 
 O vapour, a look, a word ! O well-beloved ! 
 O you dear women's and men's phantoms ! 
 
 A word then, (for I will conquer it,) 
 The word final, superior to all. 
 Subtle, sent up — what is it ? — I listen ; 
 Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea- 
 waves ? 
 Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands ? 
 
 Whereto answering, the sea. 
 Delaying not, hurrying not, 
 Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before 
 
 daybreak, 
 Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word Death ; 
 And again Death, — ever Death, Death, Death, 
 Hissing melodious, neither like the bird, nor like my aroused 
 
 child's heart. 
 But edging near, as privately for me, rustling at my feet, 
 Creeping thence steadily up to my ears, and laving me 
 
 softly all over. 
 Death, Death, Death, Death, Death. 
 
 Which I do not forget. 
 
 But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother. 
 
 That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray 
 
 beach, 
 With the thousand responsive songs, at random. 
 My own songs, awaked from that hour ; 
 And with them the key, the word up from the waves. 
 The word of the sweetest song, and all songs. 
 That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet. 
 The sea whisper'd me. 
 
298 WALT WHITMAN 
 
 CLX 
 
 TO THE MAN-OF-WAR BIRD* 
 
 Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, 
 
 Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, 
 
 (Burst the wild storm ? above it thou ascended'st, 
 
 And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,) 
 
 Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating. 
 
 As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, 
 
 (Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.) 
 
 Far, far at sea, 
 
 After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with 
 
 wrecks. 
 With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene. 
 The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun. 
 The limpid spread of air cerulean. 
 Thou also re-appearest. 
 
 Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) 
 
 To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane. 
 
 Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, 
 
 Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, 
 
 realms gyrating. 
 At dusk thou look'st on Senegal, at morn America, 
 That sport'st amid the lightning flash and thunder-cloud. 
 In them in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, 
 What joys ! what joys were thine ! 
 
WALT WHITMAN 299 
 
 CLXI 
 
 THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES * 
 
 Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest). 
 Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the 
 
 eagles. 
 The rushing amorous contact high in space together, 
 The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating 
 
 wheel. 
 Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight 
 
 grappling. 
 In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward 
 
 falling. 
 Till o'er the river poised, the twain yet one, a moment's 
 
 lull, 
 A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons 
 
 loosing. 
 Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate 
 
 diverse flight, 
 She hers, he his, pursuing. 
 
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 
 (i 830-1 894) 
 
 CLXII 
 
 PAIN OR JOY* 
 
 Hark ! that's the nightingale, 
 
 Telling the selfsame tale 
 Her song told when this ancient earth was young ; 
 So echoes answered when her song was sung 
 
 In the first wooded vale. 
 
 We call it love and pain 
 
 The passion of her strain ; 
 And yet we little understand or know ; 
 Why should it not be rather joy that so 
 
 Throbs in each throbbing vein ? 
 
 300 
 
RICHARD GARNETT 
 (1835-1906) 
 
 CLXIII 
 
 THE VIOLET TO THE NIGHTINGALE* 
 
 No longer fair, no longer sweet, 
 I parch and pine with noonday heat ; 
 Another day, perhaps an hour. 
 And I shall be no more a flower. 
 
 Thou, happy bird, when flowers decay. 
 But spread'st thy pinions, and away. 
 And India's palmy groves, ere long, 
 Are loud with thy immortal song.(') 
 
 When with her soundless silver chain 
 The moon has fettered mount and plain, 
 And not a cloud her splendour mars, 
 For she has kissed them all to stars : 
 
 When lissom (') fawn and antelope 
 In covert dell, on cedared slope 
 Couch, or with bounding feet disturb 
 The dew asleep on every herb : 
 
 When thousand lines of light invest 
 The lotus trembling on the breast 
 Of the great stream that seeks the sea, 
 Then wilt thou sing. sing of me ! 
 
 So shall the gorgeous flowers that swoon 
 All languid 'neath that lavish moon 
 Know, in thy sweet enchanted strain. 
 Their sister of the English lane. 
 301 
 
302 RICHARD GARNETT 
 
 How, lured by Spring's soft-falling feet, 
 She stole forth from her deep retreat. 
 Her nurse wild March of boisterous breath, 
 April her spouse, and May her death. 
 
 All day she made her upward eye 
 The mirror of the azure sky, 
 All night she slept in glittering dew, 
 And dreamed her morning longings true. 
 
 Come back in Spring, then wilt thou see 
 Some other flower in room of me ; 
 And as to me, to her wilt sing 
 Of thy long Eastern wandering. 
 
FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON 
 (1852-1921) 
 
 CLXIV 
 
 TO A LARK* 
 
 LITTLE singing bird, 
 
 If I could word 
 In as sweet human phrase 
 
 Thy hymn of praise : 
 
 The world should hearken me 
 
 As I do thee, 
 And I should heed no more 
 
 Than thou, but soar. 
 
 3"3 
 
304 FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON 
 
 CLXV 
 
 THE BLACKBIRD* 
 
 Blackbird, who hath taught thee 
 The heartbreak in thy song, 
 
 In the shadowing after sunset 
 When April days grow long ? 
 
 What though the lark in heaven 
 
 Forget the Eden bar ? 
 Thou art God's chosen singer 
 
 To soothe his exile, Man. 
 
WILLIAM BARNES 
 (1801-1886) 
 
 CLXVI 
 
 THE BLACKBIRD * 
 
 Ov all the birds upon the wing 
 Between the zunny show'rs o' spring, — 
 Vor all the lark, a-swingen high. 
 Mid (') zing sweet ditties to the sky. 
 An' sparrows, clust'ren roun' the bough, 
 Mid clatter to the men at plough, — 
 The blackbird, whisslen in among 
 The boughs, do zing the gayest zong. 
 
 Vor we do hear the blackbird zing 
 His sweetest ditties in the spring, 
 When nipp^n win's noo mwore do blow 
 Vrom northern skies, wi' sleet or snow, 
 But drene light doust along between 
 The Jeane-zide hedges, thick an' green ; 
 An' zoo the blackbird in among 
 The boughs do zing the gayest zong. 
 
 'Tis blithe, wi' newly-wak^n eyes. 
 
 To zee the morn^n's ruddy skies ; 
 
 Or, out a-haulen frith or lops (') 
 
 Vrom new-plesh'd (') hedge or new-vell'd copse, 
 
 To have woone's nammet (*) down below 
 
 A tree where primrwozen do grow. 
 
 But there's noo time, the whole day long, 
 
 Lik' evendn wi' the blackbird's zong. 
 
 zo 305 
 
JEAN INGELOW 
 (1830-1897) 
 
 CLXVII 
 
 WRONG SERAPH AND RIGHT BIRD* 
 
 Far better in its place the lowliest bird 
 
 Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song, 
 
 Than that a seraph strayed should take the word 
 And sing His glory wrong. 
 
 306 
 
JEAN INGELOW 307 
 
 CLXVIII 
 
 SONG OF A NEST * 
 
 A SONG of a nest : — 
 There was once a nest in a hollow : 
 
 Down the mosses and knot-grass pressed. 
 Soft and warm, and full to the brim — 
 
 Vetches leaned over it purple and dim. 
 With buttercup buds to follow. 
 
 I pray you hear my song of a nest, 
 
 For it is not long : — 
 You shall never light, in a summer quest 
 
 The bushes among — 
 Shall never light on a prouder sitter, 
 
 A fairer nestful, nor ever know 
 A softer sound than their tender twitter, 
 
 That wind-like did come and go. 
 
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 
 (1844.-1889) 
 
 CLXIX 
 
 THE WOODLARK* 
 
 Teevo cheevo cheevio chee ; 
 
 where, what can thdt be ? 
 
 Weedio-weedio : there again ! 
 
 So tiny a trickle of song-strain ; 
 
 And all round not to be found 
 
 For brier, bough, furrow, or green ground 
 
 Before or behind or far or at hand 
 
 Either left either right 
 
 Anywhere in the sunlight. 
 
 Well, after all ! Ah but hark — 
 
 " I am the little woodlark. 
 
 To-day the sky is two and two 
 
 With white strokes and strains of the blue 
 
 Round a ring, around a ring 
 
 And whUe I sail (must listen) I sing 
 
 The skylark is my cousin and he 
 Is known to men more than me 
 
 . . . when the cry within 
 Says Go on then I go on 
 Till the longing is less and the good gone 
 
 But down drop, if it says Stop, 
 To the all-a-leaf of the tr^etop 
 And after that off the bough 
 
 308 
 
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 309 
 
 I am so v6ry, so very glad 
 
 That I do think there is not to be had . . . 
 
 The blue wheat-acre is underneath 
 
 And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath, 
 
 The ear in milk, lush the sash. 
 
 And crush-silk poppies aflash. 
 
 The blood-gush blade-gash 
 
 Flame-rash rudred 
 
 Bud shelling or broad-shed 
 
 Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled 
 
 Dandy-hung dainty head. 
 
 And down . . . the furrow dry 
 Sunspurge and oxeye 
 And Jaced-leaved lovely 
 Foam-tuft fumitory 
 
 Through the velvety wind V-winged 
 To the nest's nook I balance and buoy 
 With a sweet joy of a sweet joy, 
 Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy 
 Of a sweet -a sweet -sweet -joy." 
 
JOHN BANISTER TABB 
 (184S-1909) 
 
 CLXX 
 
 THE LONELY MOUNTAIN 
 
 One bird, that ever with the wakening Spring 
 
 Was wont to sing, 
 I wait, through all my woodlands, far and near, 
 
 In vain to hear. 
 
 A thousand other winged warblers sweet 
 
 Returning, greet 
 Their fellows, and rebuild upon my breast 
 
 The wonted nest. 
 
 3 
 The voice of many waters, silent long. 
 
 Breaks forth in song ; 
 Young breezes to the listening leaves outpour 
 
 Their heavenly lore : 
 
 4 
 But unto me one fond familiar strain 
 
 Comes not again — 
 A breath whose faintest echo, farthest heard, 
 
 A mountain stirred. 
 
 310 
 
JOHN BANISTER TABB 311 
 
 THE LARK 
 
 He rose, and singing passed from sight- 
 A shadow kindling with the sun, 
 
 His joy ecstatic flamed, till light 
 And heavenly song were one. 
 
312 JOHN BANISTER TABB 
 
 CLXXII 
 
 BARTIMEUS TO THE BIRD 
 
 Had I no revelation but thy voice — 
 No word but thine — 
 
 Still would my soul in certitude rejoice 
 That love divine 
 
 Thy heart, his hidden instrument, employs 
 To waken mine. 
 
JOHN BANISTER TABB 313 
 
 CLXXIII 
 
 EVOLUTION'' 
 
 Out of the dusk a shadow, 
 
 Then, a spark ; 
 Out of the cloud a silence, 
 
 Then, a lark ; 
 Out of the heart a rapture, 
 
 Then, a pain ; 
 Out of the dead cold ashes, 
 
 Life again. 
 
314 JOHN BANISTER TABB 
 
 CLXXIV 
 
 HOLY GROUND 
 
 Pause where apart the fallen sparrow lies, 
 
 And lightly tread ; 
 For there the pity of a Father's eyes 
 
 Enshrines the dead. 
 
JOHN BANISTER TABB 315 
 
 CLXXV 
 
 A REMONSTRANCE* 
 
 Sing me no more, sweet warbler, for the dart 
 Of joy is keener than the flash of pain : 
 Sing me no more, for the re-echoed strain 
 Together with the silence breaks my heart. 
 
FRANCIS THOMPSON 
 (1859-1907) 
 
 CLXXVI 
 
 THE QUESTION* 
 
 Bird with heart of wassail, 
 That toss the Bacchic branch, 
 
 And slip your shaken music, 
 An elfin avalanche ; 
 
 2 
 Come tell me, O tell me. 
 
 My poet of the blue ! 
 What's your thought of me. Sweet ?- 
 
 Here's my thought of you. 
 
 3 
 A small thing, a wee thing, 
 
 A brown fleck of nought ; 
 With winging and singing 
 
 That who could have thought ? 
 
 4 
 
 A small thing, a wee thing, 
 
 A brown amaze withal, 
 That fly ^ pitch more azure 
 
 Because you're so small. 
 
 S 
 Bird, I'm a small thing — 
 
 My angel descries ; 
 With winging and singing 
 That who could surmize ? 
 316 
 
FRANCIS THOMPSON 317 
 
 6 
 
 Ah, small things, ah, wee things, 
 
 Are the poets all. 
 Whose tour's the more azure 
 
 Because they're so small. 
 
 7 
 The angels hang watching 
 
 The tiny men-things : — 
 The dear speck of flesh, see, 
 
 With such daring wings ! 
 
 8 
 
 Come tell us, tell us, 
 
 Thou strange mortality ! 
 What's thy thought of us. Dear ? — 
 
 Here's our thought of thee. 
 
 9 
 Alack, you tall angels, 
 
 I cant think so high ! 
 I cant think what it feels like 
 
 Not to be I. 
 
 10 
 
 Come tell me, O tell me, 
 
 My poet of the blue ? 
 What's your thought of me. Sweet ? — 
 
 Here's my thought of you. 
 
JAMES ELROY FLECKER 
 
 (1884-191S) 
 
 cLxxvn 
 
 TENEBRIS INTERLUCENTEM* 
 
 A LINNET who had lost her way 
 Sang on a blackened bough in Hell, 
 Till all the ghosts remembered well 
 
 The trees, the wind, the golden day. 
 
 At last they knew that they had died 
 When they heard music in that land, 
 And some one there stole forth a hand 
 
 To draw a brother to his side. 
 
 3'8 
 
LIVING WRITERS 
 
THOMAS HARDY 
 
 CLXXVIII 
 
 THE BLINDED BIRD* 
 I 
 
 So zestfully canst thou sing ? 
 
 And all this indignity, 
 
 With God's consent, on thee ! 
 
 Blinded ere yet a-wing 
 
 By the red-hot needle thou, 
 
 I stand and wonder how 
 
 So zestfully thou canst sing ! 
 
 Resenting not such wrong, 
 Thy grievous pain forgot, 
 Eternal dark thy lot, 
 Groping thy whole life long. 
 After that stab of fire ; 
 Enj ailed in pitiless wire ; 
 Resenting not such wrong ! 
 
 3 
 Who hath charity ? This bird. 
 Who suffereth long and is kind, 
 Is not provoked, though blind 
 And alive ensepulchred ? 
 Who hopeth, endureth all things ? 
 Who thinketh no evil, but sings ? 
 Who is divine ? This bird. 
 
 21 32T 
 
322 THOMAS HARDY 
 
 CLXXIX 
 
 THE DARKLING THRUSH 
 
 I LEANT upon a coppice gate 
 
 When Frost was spectre-gray, 
 And Winter's dregs made desolate 
 
 The weakening eye of day. 
 The tangled bine-stems scored the sky, 
 
 Like strings from broken lyres, 
 And all mankind that haunted nigh 
 
 Had sought their household fires. 
 
 The land's sharp features seem'd to be 
 
 The Century's corpse outleant, 
 His crypt the cloudy canopy, 
 
 The wind his death-lament. 
 The ancient pulse of germ and birth 
 
 Was shrunken hard and dry, 
 And every spirit upon earth 
 
 Seem'd fervourless as I. 
 
 At once a voice burst forth among 
 
 The bleak twigs overhead 
 In a full-hearted e.vensong 
 
 Of joy iUimited ; 
 An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small. 
 
 In blast-berufHed plume. 
 Had chosen thus to fling his soul 
 
 Upon the growing gloom. 
 
THOMAS HARDY 323 
 
 So little cause for caroUings 
 
 Of such ecstatic sound 
 Was written on terrestrial things 
 
 Afar or nigh around, 
 That I could think there trembled through 
 
 His happy good-night air 
 Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew 
 
 And I was unaware. 
 
324 THOMAS HARDY 
 
 CLXXX 
 
 THE ROBIN * 
 
 When up aloft 
 I fly and fly, 
 I see in pools 
 The shining sky, 
 And a happy bird 
 Am I, am I ! 
 
 When I descend 
 Towards their brink 
 I stand, and look. 
 And stoop, and drink. 
 And bathe my wings, 
 And chink and prink. 
 
 When winter frost 
 Makes earth as steel, 
 I search and search 
 But find no meal, 
 And most unhappy 
 Then I feel. 
 
 But when it lasts. 
 
 And snows still fall, 
 
 I get to feel 
 
 No grief at all, 
 
 For I turn to a cold stiff 
 
 Feathery ball ! 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 CLXXXI 
 
 THE SONG* 
 
 I HAVE a black, black mind ! 
 
 What shall I do ? 
 
 If I could fly and leave it all behind, 
 
 Scaling the blue. 
 
 Over the trees and up and out of sight, 
 
 And wrong and right 
 
 Naming them both the nonsense that they are ! 
 
 I'd leave them far, 
 
 Drop them behind with these and these and these. 
 
 The tyrannies 
 
 That promised to be blessings and are woes, 
 
 The chattering crows 
 
 That I had fancied to be singing birds. 
 
 The angry words 
 
 That drowse and buzz and drone and never stay. 
 
 Oh ! far away ! 
 
 Over the pine trees and the mountain top, 
 
 Never to stop ; 
 
 Lifting wide wings to fly and fly and fly 
 
 Into the sky. 
 
 If I had wings just like a bird 
 I would not say a single word, 
 I'd spread my wings and fly away 
 Beyond the reach of yesterday. 
 
 Damn yesterday ! and this and that, 
 And these and those, and all the flat 
 Dull catalogue of weighty things 
 That somehow fastened to my wings. 
 
 325 
 
326 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 Over the pine trees and the mountain top 
 I wUl not stop, 
 
 I lift my wings and fly and fly and fly 
 Into the sky. 
 
 No more of woeful misery I sing ! 
 
 Let her go moping down the paved way ; 
 
 WhLe to the sunny fields and everything 
 
 That laughs, and to the little birds that sing, 
 
 I pass along and tune my happy lay : 
 
 sunny sky ! 
 
 meadows that the happy clouds are drifting by ! 
 
 1 walk and play beside the little stream 
 As by a friend : I dance in solitude 
 Among the trees, or lie and'gaze and dream 
 Along the grass, or hearken to the theme 
 A lark discourses to her tender brood : 
 
 O sunny sky ! 
 
 meadows that the happy clouds are drifting by ! 
 
 There is a thrush lives snugly in a wall. 
 
 She lets me come and peep into her nest. 
 
 She lets me see and touch the speckled ball 
 
 Under her wing, and does not fear at all, 
 
 Although her shy companion is distressed : 
 
 sunny sky ! 
 
 meadows that the happy clouds are drifting by ! 
 
 Sing, sing again ye little birds of joy ! 
 
 Call out from tree to tree and tell your tale 
 
 Of happiness that knoweth no alloy ; 
 
 Although your mates seem timorous and coy 
 
 If ye sing high enough how can ye fail f 
 
 sunny sky, 
 
 meadows that the happy clouds go drifting by ! 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 327 
 
 I am the brother of each bird and tree 
 
 And everything that grows — your children glad ; 
 
 Their hearts are in my heart, their ecstasy ! 
 
 Mother of all mothers, comfort me, 
 
 Give me your breast for I am very sad : 
 
 sunny sky, 
 
 meadows that the happy clouds are drifting by. 
 
 1 wandered far away in early morn, 
 When summer did the happy trees adorn ; 
 Leaving behind all woe and discontent, 
 All sorrow and distress and angry pain, 
 And did not say to any where I went. 
 
 Or when or if I should return again 
 From leafy solitude. 
 
 I wandered far away and far away, 
 And was as happy as a person may. 
 Until I heard the birds all singing plain 
 Upon their several trees, a joyous band. 
 Who had no care save only to attain 
 The food and shelter that lay every hand 
 In leafy solitude. 
 
 I wandered far away and did not turn : 
 At their glad songs my heart began to burn, 
 And joy that I had never known before. 
 And tears that had no meaning I could say. 
 Came from the hymns the little birds did pour 
 To me as I went softly on my way 
 In leafy solitude. 
 
 I wandered far away and I was glad ; 
 I knew the rapture that the forest had ; 
 
328 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 And every bird was good to me and said 
 A kindly word before I passed him by, 
 The cheery squirrel sat and ate his bread 
 And did not fear me when I ventured nigh 
 His leafy solitude. 
 
 I wandered far away — 0, all alas ! 
 
 How quickly does the little freedom pass ! 
 
 Can I return again to domicile ? 
 
 Or leave the birds each on his several tree ? 
 
 Or recollect the songs they sang to me 
 
 In leafy solitude ? 
 
 birds, my brothers, sing to me once more ! 
 E'er I return again to whence I came. 
 
 Give me your happiness, your joy, your lore, 
 Your woodland innocence I claim 
 Because ye truly are my brothers dear. 
 Sing to me once again before I go from here. 
 
 In woodland paths again we may not meet ; 
 
 Under the slender interlacing boughs. 
 
 Where all day long the sunbeams flash and fleet 
 
 On leaf and grass and wing. 
 
 And all day long ye sing 
 
 And hold carouse : 
 
 Because ye truly are my brothers dear, 
 
 Sing to me once again before I go from here, 
 
 1 from your happy company must go away 
 To whence I came ; 
 
 But ye through all the quiet summer day 
 Will sing the same, 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 329 
 
 And fly and hold carouse 
 Under the slender interlacing boughs : 
 When I am gone, who am your brother dear, 
 Sing to me once again before I go from here. 
 
 All things must cease at last ; 
 
 Night Cometh after day 
 
 And day is past : 
 
 All things must end 
 
 And friend from loving friend 
 
 At the long last must rise and go away ; 
 
 And from the slender interlacing boughs 
 
 The leaves that flutter now will fail and fall ; 
 
 The time is come I may no more carouse, 
 
 Farewell to ye, farewell unto ye all. 
 
 Ye birds who truly are my brothers dear : 
 
 Sing to me once again before I go from here. 
 
 O clouds that sail afar almost unseen ! 
 
 unattainable ! to you alone 
 
 1 lift my wings, 
 To you I lean, 
 
 I yearn to you beyond all other things ; 
 
 Desperate I am for you, for you I moan ; 
 
 I struggle up to you and always fail, 
 
 I sink and fall, I fall for ever down. 
 
 Deep down where you are not, without avail 
 
 Or help or hope : a clod, a grinning clown 
 
 Whose wry mouth laughs in fury at his thought ; 
 
 A discontent without a word to say ; 
 
 A hope that cannot fasten upon aught ; 
 
 A nothing that is anything it may • 
 
330 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 A moodiness, a hatred and a love 
 
 Mixed, mixed of good and bad that can not show ; 
 
 But you are calm at morning as a dove 
 
 Is calm upon her nest, and in the glow 
 
 Of mid-day you are bathed round with joy, 
 
 And as a woman looking on the child 
 
 Within her arms asleep has no annoy, 
 
 So, with contented brows and bosom mild. 
 
 You rest upon the evening and its gold. 
 
 Its tender rose and pearl and green and gray : 
 
 peacefulness that never has been told ! 
 
 far away ! 
 
 Over the pine trees and the mountain top. 
 
 Never to stop. 
 
 Lifting wide wings, to fly and fly and fly 
 
 Into the sky. 
 
 Weary indeed I know the whole world is ; 
 
 Then do not sing to me a song of woe. 
 
 But tune your pipe to every merry bliss 
 
 Ye can remember, and I will not miss 
 
 To join in every chorus that I know : 
 
 Give me the very rapture of your song. 
 
 Else I may go away with thoughts that do ye wrong. 
 
 The joyful song that welcomes in the spring. 
 The tender mating song so bravely shy. 
 The song that builds the nest, the merry ring 
 When the long wait is ended and ye bring 
 The young birds out and teach them how to fly : 
 Sing to me of the beechnuts on the ground. 
 And of the first wild flight at early dawn. 
 And of the store of berries someone found 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 331 
 
 And hid away until ye gathered round 
 And ate them while he shrieked upon the lawn : 
 Sing of the swinging nest upon the tree, 
 And of your mates who call and hide away, 
 Ajid of the leaves that dance, and all the glee 
 And rapture that begins at break of day. 
 
 birds, O birds, sing once again to me ! 
 
 Sing me the joy ye have not reached to yet ; 
 
 E'er I go hence give me your ecstasy, 
 
 E'er I go hence, e'er far away I flee 
 
 Give me the joy which I may not forget ; 
 
 The very inner rapture of your song : 
 
 Else I may go away with thoughts that do ye wrong. 
 
 O follow, follow, follow ! 
 
 Blackbird, thrush and swallow ; 
 
 The air is soft, the sun is shining through 
 
 The dancing boughs ; 
 
 A little while me company along 
 
 And I will go with you : 
 
 Arouse, arouse ! 
 
 Among the leaves I sing my pleasant song. 
 
 Blackbird, thrush and swallow ! 
 
 Indeed the visits that I pay are very few. 
 
 Then come to me as I have come to you : 
 
 follow, follow, follow ! 
 
 Leave for a little time your nested boughs 
 
 And me accompany along, 
 
 Join me while I am happy ; rouse, rouse ! 
 
 Among the leaves I sing my pleasant song. 
 
332 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 Sky, sky, 
 
 On high, 
 
 gentle majesty ! 
 
 Come all ye happy birds and follow, follow 
 
 Under the slender interlacing boughs. 
 
 Blackbird, thrush and swallow ! 
 
 No longer in the sunlight sit and drowse 
 
 But me accompany along ; 
 
 No longer be ye mute ; arouse, arouse ! 
 
 Among the leaves I sing my pleasant song. 
 
 Lift, lift, ye happy birds. 
 
 Lift song and wing. 
 
 And sing and fly. 
 
 And fly again and sing 
 
 Up to the very blueness of the sky 
 
 Your happy words. 
 
 follow, follow, follow, 
 
 Where I go racing through the shady ways. 
 
 Blackbird, thrush and swallow. 
 
 Shouting aloud our ecstasy of praise : 
 
 Under the slender interlacing boughs 
 
 Me company along. 
 
 The sun is coming with us : rouse, rouse ! 
 
 Among the leaves I sing my pleasant song. 
 
 Reach up my wings ! 
 
 Now broaden into space and carry me 
 
 Beyond where any lark that sings 
 
 Can get : 
 
 Into the utmost sharp tenuity, 
 
 The breathing-point, the start, the scarcely-stirred 
 
 High slenderness where never any bird 
 
 Has winged to yet ! 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 333 
 
 The moon peace and the star peace and the peace 
 
 Of chilly sunlight ; to the void of space, 
 
 The emptiness, the giant curve, the great 
 
 Wide-stretching arms wherein the gods embrace 
 
 And stars are born and suns : where germinate 
 
 All fruitfvd seed, where life and death are one. 
 
 Where all things that are not their times await ; 
 
 Where all things that have been again are gone : 
 
 Deep womb of promise ! back to thee again 
 
 And forth revivified, all living things 
 
 Do come and go. 
 
 For ever wax and wane into and from thy garden ; 
 
 There the flower springs, 
 
 Therein does grow 
 
 The bud of hope, the miracle to come 
 
 For whose dear advent we are striving dumb 
 
 And joyless : Garden of Delight 
 
 That God has sowed ! 
 
 In thee the flower of flowers. 
 
 The apple of our tree, 
 
 The banner of our towers. 
 
 The recompense for every misery, 
 
 The angel man, the purity, the light 
 
 Whom we are working to has his abode ; 
 
 Until our back and forth, our life and death 
 
 And life again, our going and return 
 
 Prepare the way : until our latest breath. 
 
 Deep-drawn and agonized, for him shall burn 
 
 A path : for him prepare 
 
 Laughter and love and singing everywhere ; 
 
 A morning and a sunrise and a day ! 
 
 O, far away ! 
 
 Over the pine trees and the mountain top 
 
334 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 Never to stop, 
 
 Lifting wide wings, to fly and fly and fly 
 
 Into the sky. 
 
 Song ! I am tired to death ! here let me lie 
 Where we have paced the moving trees along, 
 TUl I recover from my ecstasy : 
 Farewell my Song. 
 
 Once more unto your pipe I lend my rhyme 
 Who in the woods did pace with you along ; 
 We have been happy for a little time : 
 Farewell my Song. 
 
 Soon, soon return or else my world is naught ; 
 Come back and we will pace the woods along, 
 And tell unto each other all our thought : 
 Farewell my Song. 
 
 And when again you do come back to me 
 Under the sounding trees we'U pace along. 
 While to your pipe I raise my poetry : 
 Farewell my Song. 
 
JAMES STEPHENS 335 
 
 CLXXXII 
 
 THE FIFTEEN ACRES* 
 
 I CLING and swing 
 
 On a branch, or sing 
 Through the cool, clear hush of morning, : 
 
 Or fling my wing 
 
 In the air, and bring 
 To sleepier birds a warning, : 
 
 That the night's in flight. 
 
 And the sun's in sight. 
 And the dew is the grass adorning, : 
 
 And the green leaves swing 
 
 As I sing, sing, sing. 
 
 Up by the river, 
 
 Down the d^U, 
 
 To the little wee nest, 
 
 Where the big tree fell. 
 So early in the morning, 0. 
 
 I flit and twit 
 
 In the sun for a bit 
 When his light so bright is shining, : 
 
 Or sit and fit 
 
 My plumes, or knit 
 Straw plaits for the nest's nice lining, : 
 
 And she with glee 
 
 Shows unto me 
 Underneath her wings reclining, : 
 
 And I sing that Peg 
 
 Has an egg, egg, egg, 
 
 Up by the oat-field, 
 
336 JAMES STEPHENS 
 
 Round the mill, 
 Past the meadow, 
 Down the hill. 
 So early in the morning, 0. 
 
 I stoop and swoop 
 
 On the air, or loop 
 Through the trees, and then go soaring, ; 
 
 To group with a troop 
 
 On the gusty poop 
 While the wind behind is roaring, : 
 
 I skim and swim 
 
 By a cloud's red rim 
 And up to the azure flooring, : 
 
 And my wide wings drip 
 
 As I slip, slip, slip 
 
 Down through the rain-drops, 
 
 Back where Peg 
 
 Broods in the nest 
 
 On the little white egg, 
 So early in the morning, 0. 
 
RALPH HODGSON 
 
 CLXXXIII 
 
 THE MISSEL THRUSH* 
 
 I SAW the sun burn in the blue, 
 
 And a missel thrush flew by, 
 
 And the missel thrush to a chestnut flew. 
 
 I saw a white cloud in the sky, 
 
 And Unnets sang — their breasts were red ; 
 
 And linnets sang melodiously. 
 
 And up the sky the white cloud sped, 
 
 The wind woke crying in the trees. 
 
 And the white cloud battened, his bulk was fed 
 
 By a thousand clouds that swarmed like bees ; 
 I heard the rough wind whistle shrill. 
 And the clouds banked up in billowy seas. 
 
 wild the day that was so still ! 
 The elm flung tribute of her green. 
 And linnets tossed from hedge to hill. 
 
 The sun was gone and the wind blew keen. 
 The clouds grew gray and grayer grew. 
 The sun was gone behind the screen. 
 
 The wind blew wild and wilder blew. 
 And shriller screamed and louder bawled. 
 And spun with fury round the yew. 
 
 Like a bruised snake the yew branch crawled 
 And cricked and hissed like a bruised snake 
 Where the sheltering blackbird shrank appalled, 
 
 22 337 
 
338 RALPH HODGSON 
 
 And waking slept and slept awake 
 And huddled stupid from the day, 
 Nor heard the clatt'ring thunder shake 
 
 The cloud that hung so low and gray ; 
 I heard the thunder shake the cloud, 
 And the rough wind come and die away. 
 
 I heard the gray thrush piping loud 
 
 From the wheezing chestnut-tree ; 
 
 The gray thrush gripped the spray that bowed 
 
 Beneath the storm, and brave sang he — 
 0, he sang brave as he were one 
 Who hailed a people newly free ! 
 
 But all was fear and hope was none. 
 
 For Heav'n bled flame as Heav'n were Hell ; 
 
 Still the thrush sang blithely on. 
 
 The rough wind sank and the rough wind fell- 
 0, the rough wind died upon the hill, 
 And thunder was its passing-bell. 
 
 The gray cloud burst, I saw it spill 
 Black floods as skiey seas fell whole. 
 The thrush sang with amazing skill. (') 
 
 The gray thrush heard the thunders roll, 
 And sang and heard not what he sang. 
 The Storm King claimed a noble toll, 
 
RALPH HODGSON 339 
 
 I saw his golden fang, 
 
 I saw it close upon the wood 
 
 That loud with thrush notes rang. 
 
 I looked again : the tempest's hood 
 Was torn across ; I saw the sky ; 
 So green and new the chestnut stood, 
 
 The elm lay split hard by — 
 
 From bough to bole the elm was split, 
 
 And above was melody. 
 
 I saw the sky — the sky was lit. 
 
 The sky was lit with sun. 
 
 I saw a gray thrush by me flit ; 
 
 He sang no song — ^his song was done ; 
 
 I saw his studded breast ; 
 
 And plovers rose, ten score as one. 
 
 And ribboned in the East. 
 
34° RALPH HODGSON 
 
 CLXXXIV 
 
 STUPIDITY STREET* 
 
 I SAW with open eyes 
 Singing birds sweet 
 Sold in the shops 
 For the people to eat, 
 Sold in the shops of 
 Stupidity Street. 
 
 I saw in vision 
 The worm in the wheat, 
 And in the shops nothing 
 For people to eat ; 
 Nothing for salfe in 
 Stupidity Street. 
 
RALPH HODGSON 341 
 
 CLXXXV 
 
 HYMN TO MOLOCH* 
 
 THOU who didst furnish 
 The fowls of the air 
 With loverly feathers 
 For leydies to wear, 
 Receive this Petition 
 For blessin an aid, 
 From the principal Ouses 
 Engaged in the Trade. 
 
 The trouble's as follows ; 
 A white livered Scum, 
 What if they was choked 
 'Twould be better for some, 
 'S been pokin about an 
 Creatin a fuss 
 An talkin too loud to be 
 Ealthy for us. 
 
 Thou'lt ardly believe 
 
 Ow damn friendly they are. 
 
 They say there's a time 
 
 In the future not far 
 
 When birds worth good money '11 
 
 Waste by the ton 
 
 And the Trade can look perishin 
 
 Pleased to look on : 
 
 With best lines in Paradies 
 Equal to what 
 Is fetchin a pony 
 A time in the at. 
 
342 RALPH HODGSON 
 
 An ospreys an ummins 
 An other choice goods 
 Wastefully oppin 
 About in the woods. 
 
 They 're kiddin the papers 
 An callin us names, 
 Not Yorkshire ones neither, 
 That's one of their games ; 
 They've others as pleasin 
 An soakin with spite. 
 An it dont make us appy, 
 Ow c^n it do, quite ! 
 
 We thank thee most earty 
 For mercies to date. 
 The Olesales is pickin 
 Nice profits per crate, 
 Reports from the Retails 
 Is plfeasin to read. 
 We certainly thank thee 
 Most earty indeed. 
 
 Vouchsafe, then, to muzzle 
 These meddlesome swine, 
 An learn em to andle goods 
 More in their line. 
 Be faithful, be foxy 
 Till peril is past. 
 An plant thy strong sword 
 In their livers at last. 
 
RALPH HODGSON 343 
 
 CLXXXVI 
 
 SONG* 
 
 There, sharp and sudden, there I heard- 
 Ah, some wild lovesick singing bird 
 Woke singing in the trees ? 
 The nightingale and habhle-wren 
 Were in the English greenwood then, 
 And you heard one of these ? 
 
 The babble-wren and nightingale 
 
 Sang in the Abyssinian vale 
 
 That season of the year ! 
 
 Yet, true enough, I heard them plain, 
 
 I heard them both, again, again, 
 
 As sharp and sweet and clear 
 
 As if the Abyssinian tree 
 
 Had thrust a bough across the sea. 
 
 Had thrust a bough across to me 
 
 With music for my ear ! 
 
 I heard them- both, and oh ! I heard 
 
 The song of every singing bird 
 
 That sings beneath the sky, 
 
 And with the song of lark and wren 
 
 The song of mountains, moths and men 
 
 And seas and rainbows vie ! 
 
 I heard the universal choir 
 
 The Sons of Light exalt their Sire 
 
344 RALPH HODGSON 
 
 With universal song, 
 
 Earth's lowliest and loudest notes, 
 
 Her million times ten million throats 
 
 Exalt Him loud and long. 
 
 And lips and lungs and tongues of Grace 
 
 From every part and every place 
 
 Within the shining of His face. 
 
 The universal throng. 
 
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 
 
 CLXXXVII 
 
 TO A LINNET IN A CAGE* 
 
 When Spring is in the fields that stained your wing, 
 
 And the blue distance is alive with song, 
 And finny quiets of the gabbling spring 
 
 Rock lilies red and long, 
 At dewy daybreak, I will set you free 
 
 In ferny turnings of the woodbine lane, 
 Where faint-voiced echoes leave and cross in glee 
 
 The hilly swollen plain. 
 
 In draughty houses you forget your tune, 
 
 The modulator of the changing hours. 
 You want the wide air of the moody noon, 
 
 And the slanting evening showers. 
 So I will loose you, and your song shall fall 
 
 When morn is white upon the dewy pane, 
 Across my eyelids, and my soul recall 
 
 From worlds of sleeping pain. 
 
 345 
 
346 FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 
 
 CLXXXVIII 
 
 TO A SPARROW* 
 
 Because you have no fear to mingle 
 Wings with, those of greater part, 
 So like me, with song I single 
 Your sweet impudence of heart. 
 
 And when prouder feathers go where 
 Summer holds her leafy show. 
 You stUl come to us from nowhere 
 Like grey leaves across the snow. 
 
 In back ways where odd and end go 
 To your meals you drop down sure, 
 Knowing every broken window 
 Of the hospitable poor. 
 
 There is no bird half so harmless, 
 None so sweetly rude as you. 
 None so common and so charmless, 
 None of virtues nude as you. 
 
 But for all your faults I love you. 
 For you linger with us still. 
 Though the wintry winds reprove you 
 And the snow is on the hill. 
 
T. P. CAMERON WILSON 
 
 CLXXXIX 
 
 MAGPIES IN PICARDY* 
 
 The magpies in Picardy 
 
 Are more than I can tell. 
 
 They flicker down the dusty roads 
 
 And cast a magpie spell 
 
 On the men who march through Picardy, 
 
 Through Picardy to Hell. 
 
 (The blackbird flies with panic, 
 
 The swallows go like light, 
 
 The flnches move like ladies, 
 
 The owl floats by at night ; 
 
 But the great and flashing magpie 
 
 He flies as artists might.) 
 
 A magpie in Picardy 
 Told me secret things — 
 Of the music in white feathers 
 And the sunlight that sings 
 And dances in deep shadows — 
 He told me with his wings. 
 (The hawk is cruel and rigid, 
 He watches from a height ; 
 The rook is slow and sombre, 
 The robin loves to fight ; 
 But the great and flashing magpie 
 He flies as lovers might.) 
 
 He told me that in Picardy, 
 An age ago or more, 
 While all his feathers stUl were eggs, 
 Those dusty highways bore 
 347 
 
348 T. P. CAMERON WILSON 
 
 Brown singing soldiers marching out 
 
 Through Picardy to war. 
 
 He said that still through chaos 
 
 Works on the ancient plan, 
 
 And two things have altered not 
 
 Since first the world began — 
 
 The beauty of the wUd green earth 
 
 And the bravery of man. 
 
 (For the sparrow flies unthinking 
 
 And quarrels in his flight ; 
 
 The heron trails his legs behind, 
 
 The lark goes out of sight ; 
 
 But the great and flashing magpie 
 
 He flies as poets might.) 
 
EDMUND BLUNDEN 
 
 cxc 
 AUGURY* 
 
 What sweeter sight can ever charm the eye 
 Than robin come to claim his largess old, 
 And, pinnacled against the eager sky, 
 Daring the armies of the brazen cold ? 
 And wren a-running (while the storm shrouds all 
 The swinging mill-sails and black ghosts of groves) 
 Among the weeds that shake beneath the wall. 
 Well may she vie with him in all our loves ! 
 
 The mystery of the dark birthday of spring 
 
 Ever to childhood flowered into a sign 
 
 As over head I saw the paired swans wing, 
 
 In whose wild breasts the gods made the light shine ! 
 
 And flight and song have measured year on year, 
 
 Recorders of my solitude, till the sun 
 
 Is the bright hymn of nations of the air 
 
 And evening and the dream-like owl are one. 
 
 So copses green start out of time stol'n hence 
 Because they rung with nightingales above 
 Their fellows, so returns dear innocence 
 At recollection of the lulling dove ; 
 For alms the redbreast comes, the wren dares run. 
 While rook and magpie saunter through the sky, 
 All with their kinship of the morning sun — 
 In what rare element they sing and fly ! 
 
 But how bitter burns these fair ones' pain, 
 When satyr hands in cages shut their young. 
 The old birds coming with their food in vain, 
 Till death's a mercy ; O how vast the wrong 
 
 349 
 
350 EDMUND BLUNDEN 
 
 That shuts them in, that starves but one small owl 
 Snatched into glaring day and mocks his hate ; 
 And who, the wonder is, but djinn or ghoul 
 Durst steal one mothering wing for folly's bait ? 
 
W. H. DAVIES 
 
 CXCI 
 
 DAY'S BLACK STAR* 
 
 Is it that small black star, 
 
 Twinkling in broad daylight, 
 
 Upon the bosom of 
 
 Yon cloud so white — 
 
 Is it that small black thing 
 
 Makes earth and all Heaven ring ? 
 
 Sing, you black star ; and soar 
 
 UntU, alas ! too soon 
 You fall to earth in one 
 
 Long swinging swoon ; 
 But you will rise again 
 
 To Heaven, from this green plain. 
 
 Sing, sing, sweet star ; though black, 
 Your company's more bright 
 
 Than any star that shines 
 With a white light ; 
 
 Sing, Skylark, sing ; and give 
 To me thy joy to live. 
 
 351 
 
ELEANOR FARJEON 
 
 CXCII 
 
 SONG-BIRDS FOR SALE* 
 
 Sweet-throated linnet, small and brown, 
 The joyful shopkeeper now brags 
 
 That you to-day fetch half-a-crown. 
 
 Where once, done up in paper bags. 
 
 Your cost was but one fourth as great — 
 
 You fetched not thirty pence, but eight. 
 
 Lovers of cag^d things feel sore 
 
 At this unparalleled expense. 
 Why must our linnets cost us more ? 
 
 What's your defence ? What's your defence, 
 You natives of the cageless earth ? 
 
 We all know what a linnet's worth. 
 
 In sheer revenge, had I my way, 
 
 I'd set your purchase past all price. 
 
 So that the buyer of birds to-day 
 
 Would not think once or even twice, 
 
 But cry on hearing it : " Absurd ! 
 
 A thousand guineas for a bird ? " 
 
 Then in the sort of righteous rage 
 
 Men feel when they are being done. 
 
 They'd break that worthless linnet's cage. 
 And fling the linnet to the sun. 
 
 Bidding all shop-keepers who sell 
 Songbirds for silver go to hell. 
 
 352 
 
ALICE MEYNELL 
 
 cxcm 
 IN EARLY SPRING* 
 
 Spring, I know thee ! Seek for sweet surprise 
 
 In the young children's eyes. 
 But I have learnt the years, and know the yet 
 
 Leaf-folded violet. 
 Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell 
 
 The cuckoo's fitful bell. 
 
 1 wander in a grey time that encloses 
 
 June and the wild hedge-roses. 
 A year's procession of the flowers doth pass 
 
 My feet, along the grass. 
 And all you wild birds silent yet, I know 
 
 The notes that stir you so. 
 Your songs yet half devized in the dim dear 
 
 Beginnings of the year. 
 In these young days you meditate your part ; 
 
 I have it all by heart 
 I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers 
 
 Hidden and warm with showers. 
 And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall 
 
 Alter his interval. 
 But not a flower or song I ponder is 
 
 My own, but memory's. 
 I shall be silent in those days desired 
 
 Before a world inspired. 
 O all brown birds, compose your old song-phrases. 
 
 Earth, thy familiar daisies ! 
 
 A poet mused upon the dusky height. 
 
 Between two stars towards night, 
 23 353 
 
354 ALICE MEYNELL 
 
 His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space, 
 
 The meaning of his face : 
 There was the secret, fled from earth and skies. 
 
 Hid in his young grey eyes. 
 My heart and all the Summer wait his choice, 
 
 And wonder for his voice. 
 Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire 
 
 But to divine his lyre ? 
 Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries. 
 
 But he is lord of his. 
 
MARTIN ARMSTRONG 
 
 CXCIV 
 
 THE BUZZARDS* 
 When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper 
 And every tree that bordered the green meadows, 
 And in the yellow cornfields every reaper 
 And every corn-shock stood above their shadows 
 Flung eastward from their feet in longer measure, 
 Serenely far there swam in the sunny height 
 A buzzard and his mate who took their pleasure 
 Swirling and poising idly in golden light ; 
 On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along, 
 
 So effortless and so strong, 
 Cutting each other's paths, together they glided. 
 Then wheeled asunder tUl they soared divided 
 Two valleys width (as though it were delight 
 To part like this, being sure they could unite 
 So swiftly in their empty, free dominion), 
 Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep, 
 Then with a sudden lift of the one great pinion, 
 Swung proudly to a curve and from its height 
 Took half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep. 
 
 And we, so small on the swift immense hillside. 
 Stood tranced, until our souls arose uplifted 
 
 On those far-sweeping, wide, 
 Strong curves of flight, — swayed up and hugely drifted. 
 Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tide 
 Of sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholden 
 Through shining deeps of air, the fields were golden 
 And rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended. 
 And still those buzzards wheeled, while light withdrew 
 Out of the vales and to surging slopes ascended. 
 Till the loftiest-flaming summit died to blue. 
 
 355 
 
SYLVIA LYND 
 
 cxcv 
 THE RETURN OF THE GOLDFINCHES* 
 
 We are much honoured by your choice, 
 
 golden birds of silver voice, 
 That in our garden you should find 
 A pleasaunce to your mind — 
 
 The painted pear of all our trees, 
 The south slope towards the gooseberries 
 Where all day long the sun is warm — 
 Combining use with charm. 
 
 Did the pink tulips take your eye ? 
 Or Breach's barn secure and high 
 To guard you from some chance mishap 
 Of gales through Shoreham gap ? 
 
 First you were spied a flighting pair 
 Flashing and fluting here and there, 
 Until in stealth the nest was made 
 And graciously you stayed. 
 
 Now when I pause beneath your tree 
 An anxious head peeps down at me, 
 A crimson jewel in its crown, 
 
 1 looking up, you down : — 
 
 I wonder if my stripey shawl 
 Seems pleasant in your eyes at all, 
 I can assure you that your wings 
 Are most delightful things. 
 356 
 
SYLVIA LYND 357 
 
 Sweet birds, I pray, be not severe. 
 Do not deplore our presence here. 
 We cannot all be goldfinches 
 In such a world as this. 
 
 The shaded lawn, the bordered flowers. 
 We'll call them yours instead of ours, 
 The pinks and the acacia tree 
 Shall own your sovereignty. 
 
 And, if you let us, we will prove 
 Our lowly and obsequious love. 
 And when your little grey-pates hatch 
 We'll help you to keep watch. 
 
 No prowling stranger cats shall come 
 About your high celestial home. 
 With dangerous sounds we'll chase them hence 
 And ask no recompense. 
 
 And he, the Ethiope of our house, 
 Slayer of beetle and of mouse, 
 Huge, lazy, fond, whom we love well — 
 Peter shall wear a bell. 
 
 Believe me, birds, you need not fear, 
 No cages or limed twigs are here, 
 We only ask to live with you 
 In this green garden, too. 
 
 And when in other shining summers 
 Our place is taken by new-comers, 
 We'll leave them with the house and hill 
 The goldfinches' good will. 
 
3S8 SYLVIA LYND 
 
 Your dainty flights, your painted coats, 
 The silver mist that is your notes, 
 And all your sweet caressing ways 
 Shall decorate their days. 
 
 And never will the thought of spring 
 Visit our minds, but a gold wing 
 Will flash among the green and blue. 
 And we'll remember you. 
 
PAMELA TENNANT 
 
 cxcvr 
 
 SUMMER DUSK* 
 
 Now may we follow on his curving flight, 
 The white owl mousing in the failing light ; 
 And from the osiers in the river meads, 
 Hear the sedge-warbler, chiding in the reeds. 
 
 359 
 
JOHN COLLINGS SQUIRE 
 
 CXCVII 
 
 THE BIRDS* 
 
 » 
 
 VViTHLN mankind's duration, so they say, 
 
 Khephren and Ninus lived but yesterday. 
 
 Asia had no name till man was old 
 
 And long had learned the use of iron and gold ; 
 
 And aeons had passed, when the first corn was planted, 
 
 Since first the use of syllables was granted. 
 
 Men were on earth while climates slowly swung. 
 
 Fanning wide zones to heat and cold, and long 
 
 Subsidence turned great continents to sea. 
 
 And seas dried up, dried up interminably, 
 
 Age after age ; enormous seas were dried 
 
 Amid wastes of land. And the last monsters died. 
 
 Earth wore another face. O since that prime 
 Man with how many works has sprinkled time ! 
 Hammering, hewing, digging tunnels, roads ; 
 Building ships, temples, multiform abodes. 
 How, for his body's appetites, his toils 
 Have conquered all earth's products, all her soils ; 
 And in what thousand thousand shapes of art 
 He has tried to find a language for his heart ! 
 
 Never at rest, never content or tired : 
 
 Insatiate wanderer, marvellously fired, 
 
 Most grandly piling and piling into the air 
 
 Stones that will topple or arch he knows not where. 
 
 And yet did I, this spring, think it more strange. 
 More grand, more full of awe, than all that change, 
 
 360 
 
JOHN COLLINGS SQUIRE 361 
 
 And lovely and sweet and touching unto tears, 
 
 That through man's chronicled and unchronicled years, 
 
 And even unto that unguessable beyond, 
 
 The water-hen has nested by a pond, 
 
 Weaving dry flags into a beaten floor. 
 
 The one sure product of her only lore, 
 
 Low on a hedge above the shadowed water. 
 
 Then, when she heard no men, as nature taught her, 
 
 Plashing around with busy scarlet bUl, 
 
 She buUt that nest, her nest, and builds it still. 
 
 O let your strong imagination turn 
 
 The great wheel backward, until Troy unburn, 
 
 And then unbuild, and seven Troys below 
 
 Rise out of death, and dwindle, and outflow, 
 
 TUl all have passed, and none has yet been there ; 
 
 Back, ever back. Our birds still crossed the air ; 
 
 Beyond our myriad changing generations 
 
 StiU built, unchanged, their known inhabitations. 
 
 A million years before Atlantis was 
 
 Our lark sprang from some hollow in the grass. 
 
 Some old soft hoof-print in a tussock's shade ; 
 
 Axd the wood-pigeon's smooth snow-white eggs were laid. 
 
 High amid green pines' sunset-coloured shafts, 
 
 And rooks their villages of twiggy rafts 
 
 Set on the tops of elms, where elms grew then, 
 
 And StiU the thumbling tit and perky wren 
 
 Popped through the tiny doors of cosy balls 
 
 And the blackbird lined with moss his high-built walls ;(') 
 
 A round mud cottage held the thrush's young, 
 
 And straws from the untidy sparrow's hung. 
 
 And, skimming fork-tailed in the evening air, 
 When man first was were not the martins there ? 
 
362 JOHN COLLINGS SQUIRE 
 
 Did not those birds some human shelter crave, 
 And stow beneath the cornice of his cave 
 Their dry tight cups of clay ? And from each door 
 Peeped on a morning wiseheads three or four. 
 Yes, daw and owl, curlew and crested hern, 
 Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern. 
 Chaffinch and greenfinch, warbler, stonechat, ruff, 
 Pied wagtail, robin, fly-catcher, and chough, 
 Misssel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk and jay. 
 Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. 
 And the first man who walked the cliffs of Rame, 
 As I this year, looked down and saw the same 
 Blotches of rusty red on ledge and cleft 
 With grey-green spots on them, while right and left 
 A dizzying tangle of gulls were floating and flying. 
 Circling and crying, over and over and over. 
 Crying with swoop and hover and fall and recover. 
 And below on a rock against the grey sea fretted. 
 Pipe-necked and stationary and silhouetted. 
 Cormorants stood in a wise, black, equal row 
 Above the nests and long blue eggs we know. 
 
 delicate chain over all the ages stretched, 
 
 dumb tradition from what far darkness fetched ; 
 
 Each little architect with its one design 
 
 Perpetual, fixed and right in stuff and line. 
 
 Each little ministrant who knows one thing, 
 
 One learnM rite to celebrate the spring. 
 
 Whatever alters else on sea or shore, 
 
 These are unchanging : man must still explore. 
 
ANONYMOUS 
 
 CXCVIII 
 
 THE GIFT 
 
 You heavens proud above this earth, 
 
 Have you no shade but blue ? 
 Your flow'ring stars are all alike, 
 
 But gold and silver hue : 
 Your sun but one big iris-flower. 
 Your clouds are fair but pass in shower ; 
 Live there in your huge sky 
 The hedge-rose or the campion 
 Or purple dragon-fly ? 
 
 Poor beggar sky ! to you we'll send 
 
 Out of our earthly store, 
 Out of our thousand, thousand sights 
 
 And then a million more, 
 From all our shapes and colours fine. 
 From all our unthrift beauty's mine, 
 
 A crumb from all our feast, 
 A gem from aU our treasury. 
 
 The lark — our best and least. 
 
 363 
 
NOTES 
 
 Page No. 
 
 33 I Translated by Wordsworth. The lines are a paraphrase 
 
 of what was spoken or related to have been spoken by one 
 of the nobles in Edwin's court during a Council occasioned 
 by the mission of Paulinus. See Sir Francis Palgrave's 
 History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. 5, p. 40. As Words- 
 worth's version is a paraphrase rather than a translation, 
 it may appear improper that I should have placed this 
 and perhaps the following poem at the beginning of the 
 book, particularly as the spelling is necessarily so different 
 from that of other poems in their neighbourhood. But I 
 have only spelt Chaucer's and early Scottish writers' 
 poems as they were written, because to modernise is 
 almost to bowdlerise them. And Wordsworth and Mangan 
 (see following poem) have credit to spare for Bede and 
 Gwylj^m, who did express a feeling for nature remark- 
 able for their time, however tinctured by a more literal 
 modernism. 
 
 34 2 This original and delightful poem, modem in attitude, but 
 
 with the special mediaeval quality of a surprised confes- 
 sion of unlooked-for rapture in an immediate reaction to 
 beauty, was translated by James Clarence Mangan. To 
 what extent he modified or paraphrased it I do not know. 
 
 — — (1) An example of amateur candour, not too common ! 
 
 — — (') " My golden sister " is a poetic licence for the poet's 
 
 mistress, who lived in Cheshire. 
 
 36 3 " May-morning " is chiefly, of course, courtly, modish 
 
 convention in Chaucer's day, but Chaucer's personal 
 knowledge and love of nature made the fashion something 
 more than an ornamental shell on the mantelpiece. There's 
 a live animal in his shell. As A. W. Ward says, " he re- 
 minds us of his own fresh Canace, ' who of the foules knew 
 all their intent. '" 
 From The Romaunt of the Rose, Fragment A. 
 
 — — (1) Goldfinch. 
 
 — — p) Parrot (?). 
 
 37 4 From The Parlement of Foules. There are other such 
 
 allusions to old traditions and legends about birds in the 
 poem, mingled with bits of truth about them, a bird to 
 Chaucer being a real thing, as well as a convention. 
 
 365 
 
366 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 37 4 P) Apparently the first literary recognition of the orni- 
 
 thologist — and the last ! 
 
 — — P) Pains, injuries, wounds. 
 
 — — (') The Peregrine : viz. Tercel gentle (" tassel gentle " : 
 
 Romeo and Juliet). 
 
 — — (*) Sparrowhawk. 
 
 — — (') Merlin. 
 
 — — («) Cock-bird. 
 
 — — (') Because of its wiliness in drawing an intruder from the 
 
 nest. 
 
 — — (') The starling — ^through its powers of mimicry. 
 
 — — (9) Robin. 
 
 — — ("•) Villages. Thorpeness in Suffolk ; Thorpe, a suburb 
 
 of Norwich. 
 
 — — (") Calleth. 
 
 38 — (I'i) The Earl of Surrey had digested this line. "The swift 
 
 swalow pursueth the flyes smale " occurs in his beautiful 
 sonnet Description of Spring. 
 
 — — P') The avenger of adultery. 
 
 — — (") Both words mean " mate." 
 
 39 5 From The Parlement of Foules. 
 
 — — (1) Mate, viz. " I sing of a maiden 
 
 That is makeles." 
 
 40 6 From The Manciple's Tale. It would be queer, perhaps, 
 
 to meet this enlightenment, or rather knowledge of the 
 truth, so early, were not the writer our Chaucer, the most 
 personable poet in the language, whose heart is always so 
 true and humanity so sound. 
 
 41 7 From The King's Quhair, a fifteenth-century allegorical 
 
 poem of strong colour, feeling, and liveliness, commemorat- 
 ing the poet's love for Lady Jane Beaufort. It was first 
 published in 1783. 
 
 — — (1) Twigs. 
 
 — — (2) Time. 
 
 42 8 From The Goldin Terge. Crabbe puts Dunbar on a level 
 
 with Bums, and Scott says he has no rival in Scottish 
 poetry, while his editor Dr. Baildon, freely compares him, 
 in his power of satiric humour, with Chaucer. We need 
 not trouble ourselves here with Dunbar's rank in the poetic 
 academy, except to say that as a decorative master of 
 the ceremonies in the May-morning convention he was, 
 for all his elegance, much inferior to the Chaucer who 
 breathed life into them. 
 
 — — (1) Star. 
 
 — — (2) Diana. 
 
 — — (') Rose-garden. 
 
 — — (4) Purified. 
 
 — — ("•) Curtains. 
 _ _ (6) Float. 
 
NOTES 367 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 42 8 (') Buds. 
 
 — — (') Like beryl. 
 
 — — {<•) Gleaming. 
 
 — — P°) Overspread (a mackerel sky). 
 
 (") Gaps. 
 
 43 9 " Marees " = waters. 
 
 — — P") " Acherontes well " = Acheron's well. 
 
 — — (1") "Bio" = livid. 
 
 — — ('") " Mare " = hag. 
 
 44 — (1'') " Between my breastes soft." Catullus's Ad Passerem 
 
 Lesbiae has the same. CatuUus's famous poem was, of 
 course, Skelton's model. 
 
 — — (") " Proper and prest " = pretty (the French " mignon " 
 
 better expresses it) and neat. 
 
 45 — ('*) Nice = foolish or tricksy. 
 
 — — {^) See William Wager (p. 53). 
 
 46 — (*) A nunnery in a suburb of Norwich, founded 1 1 46. 
 
 — — (') Untwined = torn to pieces. 
 
 — — (*) Gripes = griffins. 
 
 ■ — — (*) Lycaon, King of Arcadia, was transformed into a 
 wolf (Ovid : Metamorphoses). 
 
 47 — (°) Departed = parted. 
 
 — — (') Spare = " a striped triangular piece of cloth inserted 
 
 at the bottom, on each side of a shift or of a robe " (Jamie- 
 son). 
 
 48 — (8) Musse = mussle, i.e. mouth. 
 
 — — (») Jangling : a common epithet of old writers for the jay. 
 • — — (1°) Red sparrow = reed bunting or reed or sedge warbler 
 
 (see Dra3rton, p. 68). 
 
 — — (11) Spink = chaffinch, from the alarm-note. 
 
 — — (12) The dotterel's simulation of a broken wing to draw the 
 
 enemy from her young gave birth to the legend that she 
 imitates the fowler's gestures. Hence the libel on her 
 nous. 
 
 — — (i») Toot = pry. 
 
 49 — (") Snite = snipe. 
 
 — — (") Solf =solfa. 
 
 — — (18) Woodhack = woodpecker. 
 
 — — (i6«) Mur = catarrh. 
 
 — — (1') Popinjay = parrot. 
 
 — — (U) Toteth = pryeth. 
 
 — — (i») Bitter with his bump = bittern with his boom. The 
 
 bird is still known locally as "bitterbump," "bogbumper." 
 Drayton, Crabbe, Burns (p. 149), and Wordsworth have 
 lines about the bittern, and there is an interesting poem 
 by " A Fen Parson " (1900) referring to the bird. 
 
 — — (!"•) Menander = Maeander. 
 
 50 — (^) Gant = gander. But here possibly gannet. 
 __ — (21') Viz. = the knot and the ruff. 
 
368 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO, 
 
 50 9 {") Barnacle = bemacle goose, reputed by the early 
 
 naturalists, impressed by the wonders of nature, to have 
 been born of the barnacle = mollusc. 
 
 — — (") Divendap = dabchick. Shakespeare's dive-dapper. 
 
 — — {") Throstle = here the missel-thrush. Mavis, above, 
 
 is the song-thrush. 
 
 — — (*') fraye = fright. The legend was that the osprey, 
 
 while hovering over the water for fish, became fascinated 
 and turned up its belly. 
 
 — — ('•) sedean = subdean or subdeacon (?). 
 
 — — P') Demean = conduct. 
 
 — — (*«) Ordinal = ritual. 
 
 — — (") The tassel (a corruption of tiercel) gentle was the male 
 
 of the peregrine falcon, the sovereign bird in falconry, and 
 not of the goshawk, as Dyce (Skelton : Poetical Works) 
 says, though ancient writers often confuse the goshawk 
 and the peregrine. Walton in The Compleat A ngler makes 
 no such mistake, correctly placing the " tassel-gentle " 
 among the long-winged hawks and the goshawk among the 
 short-winged. 
 
 51 — ('•) The sacre is described by Turbervile (Booke of Faul- 
 
 conrie) as "much like the Falcon Gentle for largenesse 
 and the Haggart for hardines." 
 
 — — (") The true lanner is the sacred falcon of the ancient 
 
 Egyptians, and the modem Falco araris. But Skelton's 
 lanner is lost in the obscurities of terms of falconry. 
 Marlion = merlin, the little blue hawk of the moorlands. 
 
 — — (»*) Musket = the male sparrow-hawk. The hobby, 
 
 which can outwing swallows, was used in falconry for 
 taking larks. Members of the Royal Society for the 
 Protection of Birds to-day prefer the merlin. 
 
 — — (") Could anything be more charming than this blend of 
 
 paganism and Christianity, of Romish and Roman 
 theology ? Skelton, of course, is as alive to the appealing 
 reconciliation of his exquisite nun's heavens as Chaucer 
 is alive to the Wife of Bath's pious expounding of the 
 good life. But many of our mediaeval writers lisped 
 piety and blasphemy (as the dogmatism of later ages 
 would call it) in one breath with a sweetness and simplicity 
 disarming (one hopes) even to the theologian. Philip 
 Sparrow was written before the end of 1508, as Barclay's 
 Ship of Fooles, published in that year, mentions it with 
 contempt (Dyce, Skelton' s Poetical Works). Coleridge called 
 it " an exquisite and original poem." Indeed, the first- 
 hand poets know how to telescope a variety of emotions, 
 sometimes conflicting, into a unity, being tender, mocking, 
 passionate, shy, whimsical, gay, and melancholy all in a 
 breath of music. So " old Skelton " and Marvell in his 
 Lines to his Coy Mistress, one of the most perfect examples 
 
NOTES 369 
 
 PAGE HO. 
 
 in literature. To flick the ear of beauty need not be 
 to love her any the less. 
 52 10 From the poet's translation of the Aeneid (1513), with 
 the exception of that of Boethius, which is negligible, 
 the first metrical version of a classic. See Warton's 
 History of English Poetry, vol. 3. This is the best work of 
 a poet whose affectations, conventionalisms, anglicisms 
 of Latin words, and otiose style badly silted up the flow 
 of his verse. A complete edition of Douglas was edited 
 by John Small in 1874. 
 
 52 10 (1) Crows, so coos {fiammer Gurtons Needle). 
 
 — — (") Preens. The Shakespearian " picked " (spruced out). 
 
 — — (') Fine tunes. 
 
 — — (^) Chirps (Herrick : " chirring grasshopper "). 
 
 — — (*) Linnet. 
 
 — — (') Firmament. 
 
 — — (•) Twittereth. 
 
 — — (*>) Rushed. 
 
 — — («^) Groves. 
 
 — — (') Twigs. 
 
 — — (') Resounding, humming. 
 
 — — (') Mounting. 
 
 — — (i») Praised their lady. 
 
 — — (") Who build. 
 
 — — (") Restorer. 
 
 53 II From the Tudor interlude The Longer thou Livest the more 
 
 Fool thou art. The ditty is probably made up of older 
 tags, ballads, and songs stitched together. The last 
 four lines reappear in a modified form in the Rump song : 
 
 " Oliver Cromwell lies buried and dead, 
 
 Hey ho I buried and dead." 
 
 54 12 This beautiful poem, in which convention does no injury 
 
 to feeling, is from Certain Sonets written by Sir Philip 
 Sidney, first published in the folio of 1598. The first 
 stanza, all but the last line, appears in Thomas Bateson's 
 First Set of English Madrigals : to Three, Four, Five, and 
 Six Voices {1604). 
 
 55 13 1596- 
 
 — — (') Compare with Keats (p. 180). 
 
 56 14 Published with ^»M0««» (1595). 
 
 — — (1) "Descant" is variation of the movement of music 
 
 without altering the subject. 
 
 57 15 From Summer's Last Will and Testament (1592). 
 
 58 16 Fxora Alexander and Campaspe (j^S^). The songs did not 
 
 appear until the collected edition of 1632. 
 
 — — (1) " Prick-song " is " harmony written or pricked down 
 
 in opposition to plain-song, where the descant rested v/ith 
 the will of the singer " (Chappell). The variety and rich- 
 
 24 
 
370 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 ness of the nightingale's song caused it to be called 
 "prick-song" by early writers. So the cuckoo's notes 
 are plain-song. 
 
 59 17 (1) Geek = jest. 
 
 — — (1") Deave = deafen. 
 
 — — (2) Pawn = peacock. From The Cherry and the Slae — a top- 
 
 heavy allegorical poem with Virtue and Vice as the lion 
 and the unicorn. But there are a few cheerful inns on 
 the way through it, and Bums is supposed to have owed 
 something to this style of versification. 
 
 60 18 From Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 61 19 From A Winter's Tale. 
 
 — — (1) Thievish. 
 
 62 20 From Love's Labour's Lost. 
 
 — — (1) See W. H. Davies, The East in Gold — ^the cock, " Time- 
 
 keeper on green farms." 
 
 — — (2) Skim. 
 
 63 21 Romeo and Juliet, Act ^, Scene ^. It would be a repulsive 
 
 form of vivisection to chop out the lines strictly relevant 
 to this book from the context. The passage must stand 
 as a whole, if only to show that Romeo was a better 
 ornithologist than divine Juliet. And in a world where 
 night was light and day darkness, she may well be for- 
 given by science for confusing lark with nightingale. 
 65 22 From Macbeth, Act i, Scene 3. 
 
 65 — Love, not truth, exempts Shakespeare from the errors 
 
 of observation, the myths and inventions derived from 
 traditional natural history in which all his contemporaries 
 floundered. They naturally took the word from Maplet, 
 Gesner, Harrison, and Holland's translation of Pliny. 
 Nevertheless, Shakespeare's work contains a greater 
 abundance of animal lore than any other contemporary 
 poet's or dramatist's except Lyly. (Euphues — a mine of 
 misinformation.) The birds he refers to are the wren 
 (" the most diminutive of birds "), mallard, snipe, plover, 
 (lapwing), quail, woodcock, partridge, pheasant, cormorant 
 ("this cormorant war" — "cormorant devouring time," 
 etc.), swan (for its fabled dying song), dabchick (" Like 
 a dive-dapper peering through a wave. Who being look'd 
 on, ducks as quickly in "), nightingale, throstle, black- 
 bird (viz. ousel), lark, redbreast (ruddock), wagtail (as 
 a term of contempt for a toady, viz. dishwasher from the 
 still surviving name of " Polly Dish Wash "), raven, crow, 
 and magpie (the " unclean " birds), rook, kite (puttock), 
 jay, jackdaw (used as a type of folly in Henry VI and 
 Coriolanus) , chough (in the famous reference to the sam- 
 phire gatherer), starling, eagle, vulture, osprey, various 
 other hawks (falconry), ostrich, and parrot (popinjay). 
 
 66 23 From The Passionate Pilgrim (1640). Saintsbury is 
 
NOTES 371 
 
 PAGE HO. 
 
 inclined to attribute it to Shakespeare, as being above 
 Bamfield's head, and there are, of course, Shakespeare 
 songs in the collection, which is a storehouse for stolen 
 goods. But where there is any doubt, the lesser man 
 should always have the benefit of it. Shakespeare is a 
 plutocrat already, without pauperising his littler fellows. 
 
 66 23 (1) Pandion, in the legend, was the father of Philomela. 
 
 67 24 From Polyolbion — The Thirteenth Song (1612). 
 
 — — (') " Of all birds only the blackbird whistleth" (Dray- 
 
 ton's note). 
 
 68 — (*) The reed-bunting, which has a weak, jingling song. 
 
 More probably the sedge-warbler or reed-warbler. 
 
 (') The bullfinch. Local variants = Mwope, Hope, and 
 
 Pope. 
 
 — — (*) The yellowhammer (?). 
 
 — — (') Possibly Drajrton thought goldfinches were the 
 
 parental stock of canaries, 
 
 — — (•) The tydy or tidy seems to be the golden-crested wren, 
 
 which has a penetrating though little-varied song, and 
 used to be called the tidley-goldfinch in Devonshire. It 
 might, however, be the same as Chaucer's tidee, which 
 appears to be a titmouse. 
 
 — — (') The hecco or hick-way (see p. log) is the yafSe. 
 
 ■This is one of the most spirited and precise descriptions 
 of birds among the Elizabethan writers, to whom they were 
 little more than the team of Venus's chariot. 
 
 69 25 From. The Vision of Delight. 
 
 70 26 From The Shoemaker's Holiday (1600). The cuckoo, 
 
 doubtless from the name, was the ill-omened bird of 
 cuckoldry. As it is a polyandrous bird in fact, the 
 Elizabethans wrote better than they knew. See Shake- 
 speare's cuckoo song. 
 
 71 27 Fiom Britannia's Pastorals. Thefirstbookwas published in 
 
 1613, the second in 1616, the two together in 1625, and 
 the third posthumously. 
 
 72 28 From Comedies, Tragi-Comedies , with Other Poems (1651). 
 
 One of the better of the many paraphrases of Catullus's 
 famous song. 
 
 74 29 From Flowers of Sion (1623). Marino has a sonnet on 
 
 the same theme. 
 
 75 30 From Poems (1614). A strain that Milton heard when 
 
 he wrote " O Nightingale that on yon bloomy spray." 
 The beautiful conceit of " Night . . . become all ear " 
 reminds one of Milton's " Silence was pleased." There 
 is a delicate iridescent play of spirit in Drummond's 
 Sonnets which saves them, highly polished and techni- 
 cally expert as they are, and relying upon foreign models 
 as they do, from imitation and formality. 
 
 76 31 From The Rape of Liicrece (1608). 
 
372 NOTES 
 
 PAGE HO, 
 
 77 32 From The Fair Maid of the Exchange (1607). The Eliza- 
 bethans' treatment of the countryside as a kind of labour 
 exchange for the hiring of feathered minstrels to serenade 
 their mistresses is so common as to make criticism 
 superfluous. We do best but to remark and then 
 accept it. 
 
 79 33 From Trivial Poems and Triolets, written in 1651, " in 
 obedience to Mrs. Tomkins's commands," and discovered 
 and published by Scott in 1819. Two much poorer 
 stanzas omitted. Cary, the younger brother of Lord 
 Falkland, has — ^with all deference to Prof. Saintsbury's 
 contrary opinion- — nothing to him but this tribute to 
 nature's better verse-making. See my Seventeenth-Century 
 English Verse, p. 324, for a note upon him. For the change 
 of attitude to nature see notes on Hall and Vaughan (pp. 87 
 and 96). 
 
 81 34 From The Delights of the Muses. The most complete 
 seventeenth-century edition of Crashaw was in 1670. 
 Music's Duel is, from one point of view, one of the 
 most extraordinary poems in all English literature. 
 For brilliance of execution, intricate handling, and 
 scattered felicities of phrase, it is almost without a rival, 
 and the strategic mastery over masses of raw levies of 
 words is astonishing. From another point of view it is 
 a unique Crystal Palace display of coloured lights. One 
 feels the artistry, the coldness, the wonder, and the 
 artificiality of it all at once. One finds it difficult to 
 believe that the writer of Music's Duel was a religious 
 poet of an ardour hardly earthly. But there was a 
 strong sensuous, even voluptuous, element in Crashaw 
 which reaches a pitch of refined expression in this poem 
 as wonderful as Crashaw's o^vn enchanting use of language. 
 But somehow, as in Ariel, a soul is wanting. Nor does it 
 respond to a beautiful definition of poetry by Keats in 
 a letter to Taylor : " Poetry should be great and unob- 
 trusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does 
 not startle or amaze it with itself, but with its subject." 
 Yet to the nightingale's blaze of song, what a tribute I 
 
 87 35 From Poems (1646). For comment upon the new, objec- 
 
 tive treatment of nature, see note on Vaughan (p. 96). 
 
 88 36 From Hesperides (1648). The same poem with slight 
 
 verbal difierences and " William Redley " for " Robin 
 Herrick " appears anonymously in Henry Bold's miscel- 
 lany Wit a sporting in a pleasant Grove of New Fancies 
 
 {1657). 
 
 89 37 From Hesperides. Before Philomel became the nightin- 
 
 gale, we may well overlook the greatness of sorrow thrust 
 upon her — who should be him — for the sake of the gi-ace 
 and buoyancy of songs like this one. It is after she 
 
NOTES 373 
 
 NO. 
 
 emerged from her woe and put on feathers for sackcloth 
 that we feel inclined to commiserate her (him) for the 
 continued pity of the poets, in Miltonic strains : 
 
 " What needs the nightingale for his burdened bones. 
 The sorrow of an age in poets' groans ? " 
 But even Herrick's Philomel is beginning to hatch from 
 the egg of legend, and the admission to Hades of even half 
 a bird is a touching and beautiful modernism which a 
 great many modems would not allow. And even in the 
 modem era has the nightingale succeeded in escaping 
 the incubus of being a woman with a past ? " She " still 
 weeps away her nights in song, having lamented steadily 
 up to Matthew Arnold and beyond, wasting her time, as 
 a naturalist justly says, in '' melodious sorrows," instead 
 of minding her business and keeping the chill off her eggs. 
 
 90 38 From Hesperides. 
 
 91 39 From Sonnets and Canzone — " Poems on Several Occa- 
 
 sions " (1673). 
 
 — — (*) A notion derived from Chaucer's Cuckoo and Nightin- 
 
 gale: 
 
 " But as I lay this othir night waking, 
 I thought how lovers had a tokening. 
 And among hem it was a commeme tale 
 That it were gode to hear the Nightingale 
 Moche rathir than the leude Cuckowe singe" 
 
 92 40 From Paradise Lost, Bk. 7 (1667). 
 
 — — (') Migration seems first to have been recorded by the 
 
 Jews. {See J. H. Guiney, Annals of Ornithology.) Milton 
 took the material of this passage from them rather than 
 Pliny. 
 
 — — P) How admirably labour-saving were the foreseeing 
 
 dispensations of Providence, who on the fifth day created 
 the cock and the swan, all ready domesticated (the wild 
 swan does not arch its neck), before the advent of man 
 on the sixth I 
 
 93 41 From Upon Appelton House {Miscellaneous Poems, 
 
 folio, 1681). 
 
 One naturally associates felicities of expression and melody 
 with the seventeenth century, but hardly close observa- 
 tion. In this respect the extract is so remarkable that 
 I have not scrupled to head it " The Forest Naturalist." 
 The description of the green woodpecker in Willoughby's 
 Ornithology (1678) is almost as inferior to it in accuracy as in 
 beauty. Marvell's power of identifying himself with his 
 subject through his sensibility is strongly marked in the 
 last lines, which seem a prelude to the famous " My soul 
 into the boughs ..." 
 
 — — (1) The poet, of course, means the ring-dove. 
 
374 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 94 41 (') Hewel or hewhole = green woodpecker. 
 
 — — (') Holt-felster = forester. 
 
 95 42 From Silex Scintillans, Part II (1655). The first edition 
 
 — 1650 — does not contain Part II). Five stanzas omitted, 
 by which the poem does not lose. 
 
 95 42 (') Tined, i.e. closed, a, word surviving in Northern rural 
 
 dialect up to quite recently. 
 
 96 43 From Silex Scintillans. Two last, irrelevant, and inferior 
 
 stanzas omitted. This poem is more revolutionary than 
 any in the Lyrical Ballads, because it had so few prece- 
 dents and grew in a less timely and auspicious soil than 
 they did. In it and a few other poems of Vaughan's, 
 Nature appears in her own biography and not as an 
 appendix to the confessions of the human heart. Birds, 
 flowers, and fields have hitherto been the projection of 
 personal moods, symbols for the amorist, theatrical pro- 
 perties in the staging of human passion. Natural life 
 was relative to human feeling alone, and so inanimate 
 apart from it. Vaughan restored to Nature her birth- 
 right and peopled the earth with new beings. By such 
 a revelation he contributed to the deposition of man 
 as the alpha and omega of life, and saw creation not 
 only as an indwelling but an impartial spirit. Vaughan 
 in his way is thus a prophet of Darwinism. 
 
 97 44 'From. Anacreontics.- Refreshing this, after a sad satiety 
 
 of artless songsters, pretty quiristers, and ravished 
 nightingales. 
 99 46 Some stanzas omitted. This very rare poem is taken from 
 Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, IV, 380. Latham 
 says : " This is a most curious tract, Mr. Herbert seems 
 to think that it may have been written by Skelton, 
 being entirely in his manner." Dibdin agrees with 
 Latham ; but the poem is not by Skelton, nor, except quite 
 superficially, is it at all in his manner. Doggerel as the 
 verses are, they have something (especially in the four- 
 teenth stanza) of that heart-searching sweetness which 
 the unified, unperplexed vision of the Middle Ages 
 gave to man. 
 
 103 47 P) Turf. 
 _ _ (2) Neck. 
 
 — _ (») Thatch. 
 
 104 48 These curious verses were printed in the second edition 
 
 of Tottell's Miscellany of Songes and Sonnettes (1557), 
 under the heading of Twenty-Nine Additional Poems by 
 Uncertain Auciours. 
 
 105 49 From John Bartlett's A Book of Ayres with a TripHciiie of 
 
 Musich, " whereof the First Part is for the Lute or 
 Orpharion, and the Viole de Gambo, and 4 Partes to sing. 
 The second part is for 2 Trebles to sing to the Lute and 
 
NOTES 375 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 Viole, The third part is for the Lute and one Voice, and 
 the Viole de Gambo " (1606). 
 
 105 49 n Hic-quail = hick-way or hecco (" the laughing 
 
 hecco," Drayton's Polyolbion) , a popular name for the 
 green woodpecker. This, no doubt, is a corruption of the 
 same word and has nothing to do with the quail. But 
 " parti-coloured coat " suggests the greater spotted 
 woodpecker, especially as his double chirp follows upon 
 the " ka-ka " of the daw. Here, then, is the first literary 
 reference to this bird in our literature, and probably the 
 solitary one in poetry. 
 
 — — P) Kites, now almost extinct, were the common scaven- 
 
 gers of Elizabethan London. 
 
 106 — (») Severals. A several was an enclosed pasture, as 
 
 distinguished from a common or open field. The word 
 occurs in Love's Labour's Lost, Troilus and Cressida, and 
 The Winter's Tale. 
 
 The first and second of these charming songs are remark- 
 able for an objective sympathy with and direct knowledge 
 of birds extremely rare to the age. Praise of the owl is 
 indeed as rare among English poets as the golden oriole 
 in England, and the prejudice is not confined to the 
 earlier periods. Where the " unacknowledged legis- 
 lators " lead the way, it were optimistic to expect any 
 better of the gamekeeper I There is, of course, a wide 
 difference between the poet's direct assumption that the 
 owl is a grim, an unhallowed, a " moping," or funereal 
 bird by nature and the melancholy impression of its 
 hoot, nocturnal associations, stealthiness, etc., upon his 
 own mood. The latter is always legitimate ; the former, 
 in a modem poet, certainly not. 
 
 107 50 From Robert Jones's The First Set of Madrigals of 3, 4, 5, 
 
 6, 7, 8 parts, for Viols and Voices, or for Voices alone ; 
 or as you please (1607). 
 
 108 51 'Fxom.Thom.asWeeVkss'sAyeresorPhantastickeSpiritesfor 
 
 three voices (1608). And I heard recently of a human 
 dragon for righteousness who shoots cuckoos because they 
 are immoral ! 
 
 109 52 From Thomas Morley's Madrigales : The Triumphes of 
 
 Oriana, to 5 and 6 voices : composed by divers severall 
 aucthors (1601). Edward Johnson was the actual com- 
 poser, the volume, written in honour of Queen Elizabeth, 
 being edited by Morley. 
 
 — — (1) Bonny-boots has not been identified, but he was " evi- 
 
 dently a dancer and singer in considerable favour with 
 Queen Elizabeth" (A. N. Fellowes, English Madrigal 
 Verse). 
 
 — HA recorder was a wind-instrument of the flute family 
 
 (idem). 
 
376 NOTES 
 
 PAGE HO. 
 
 no 53 From Thomas Vautor's The First Set: Being Songs of 
 divers Ayres and Natures, of Five and Sixe parts : Apt for 
 Vyols and Voices (i6ig). 
 
 111 54 From John Bartlett's yl Booft o/ ^yres ..." 
 
 112 — P) A peat, according to Nares, is " a delicate person; 
 
 usually applied to a young female, but often, ironically, 
 as meaning a spoiled, pampered favourite." " Pet " 
 is no doubt the same word. It occurs in The Taming of 
 the Shrew. 
 
 114 56 This song appears in one of the modem Spectator letters, 
 
 and is presumably an Elizabethan paraphrase of Charles 
 d'Orleaus's competitive carol — a perfect lyrical matching 
 of human with bird language : 
 
 " La gentille alouette 
 Avec son tire-lire-a-lire 
 Et tire-lire-a-lire 
 Tirelirant tire 
 Vers la vofitre du ciel. 
 Puis son vol vers ce lieu 
 Vire 
 Et desire dire : 
 
 Adieu Dieu ! 
 
 Adieu Dieu 1 " 
 
 115 57 From Henry Lawes's J9ooft 0/ .(4 yres, 1650. 
 
 116 58 Among the numerous variants of this folk-rhyme, which 
 
 diflfer from coimty to county, I select the following : 
 
 " In March, the guku beginth to sarch ; 
 In Aperal, he beginth to tell ; 
 In May, he beginth to lay ; 
 In June, he altereth 'is tune ; 
 In July, away a dith vly." 
 
 (Devonshire.) 
 
 " The cuckoo's a bonny bird, he whistles as he flies. 
 He brings us good tidings, he tells us no lies ; 
 He sucks little birds' eggs to make his voice clear. 
 And never sings cuckoo till summer draws near. 
 Sings cuckoo in April, cuckoo in May, 
 Cuckoo in June and then flies away." 
 
 (Northumberland.) 
 
 119 59 From Huflljftrffs (1663). The extract is given in T^e NoiM- 
 
 ralist's Poetical Companion, a very rare (it is not in the 
 British Museum) and curious anthology, dated 1833 — 
 one of an extinct genus of books which began about 
 1810, flourished in the thirties, and had vanished by i860. 
 
 120 60 From The Hind and the Panther. This is a creditable 
 
 account when we remember the opinion of the wise men 
 of the eighteenth century that birds migrated to the moon 
 
NOTES 377 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 — ^which reveals a steep decline in the study of the Bible, 
 wherein migration is more attentively recorded. Dryden 
 avoided committing himself to naming the destination by 
 the poetic licence of " it concerns us not to know." Both 
 hind and panther draw upon other species to point the 
 moral and adorn the tale, Halifax's and Prior's parody 
 confining itself to mice. 
 
 The theories of old writers upon migration, especially 
 swallows, are very engaging. The Book of Job in " Doth 
 the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings 
 towards the south ? " marks the autumnal migration of 
 birds of prey in the East, and the Iliad alludes to the gather- 
 ing of waders on the mud-flats of Asiatic rivers, and the 
 southern flight of the cranes before the winter. Anacreon 
 mentions the Nile as the winter resort of the swallows, and 
 Aristotle {Historia A nimalium) gives a more or less correct 
 general account of the migration of cranes, pelicans, quail, 
 rock-, ring-, and turtle-doves, landrails, " eared owls," 
 swans, and geese. But he fathers centuries of error, right 
 up to Gilbert White (who owed his howler largely to the 
 pernicious influence of Daines Barrington), by his tale of 
 swallows wintering in holes. Aristotle, too, was the 
 " onlie begetter " in print of the " transmutation " theory, 
 nursed to the present day, when some gamekeepers still 
 believe that the cuckoo does not migrate, but is meta- 
 morphosed into a hawk. But it was the Middle Ages 
 which stampeded in speculation. Olaus Magnus in His- 
 toria de Gentibus Seplentrionalibus et Natura {1555) is 
 highly circumstantial concerning the hibernation of 
 swallows at the bottom of ponds, whence, mingled with 
 fish, they were drawn by fishermen. Cuvier, Linnaeus, the 
 Royal Society and the French Academy in the eighteenth 
 century all accepted this, the gathering of swallows in 
 reed-beds before migration probably being the origin 
 of the myth. But it was a rare little tract published in 
 1703 by " A Person of Learning and Piety " which pro- 
 pounded the solution to which Dryden refers elsewhere in 
 the poem quoted here — ^that swallows migrate to the moon. 
 Francis Willoughby's Ornithology (1678) alone withstood 
 the all-levelling blast of faith about the swallows. 
 
 122 61 From Aesop. Cage-birds can and do borrow whole 
 
 phrases of each other's songs. Usually the finer the singer 
 among wild birds (viz. the marsh warbler), the greater the 
 mimic and vice versa. But that finished artist, the 
 nightingale, is an exception, and in freedom is never, like 
 the thrush, a mimic. Though captivity greatly modifies 
 the habits and capacities of birds, the poe. s nightingale 
 here is probably the bird of convention. 
 
 123 62 Green's poems, consisting of The Spleen, The Grotto, The 
 
378 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 Seeker, etc., and some smaller pieces, were not published 
 until after his death, in 1737. The dissenting education 
 of his youth seems to have been responsible for the free 
 scepticism, the witty, original detachment of mind, and 
 some of the ironical melancholy of his manhood, without 
 curdling his sweetness of disposition. In verse, he makes 
 a more masculine, if less delicate and harmonious, Cowper. 
 
 126 64 The philosophy and imagination of these fine lines, so 
 
 curiously anticipating a later knowledge, are not those 
 we commonly associate either with Pope or his age. The 
 humaneness of the eighteenth century is usually that of 
 a country squire or a London fine gentleman. Pope, 
 Thomson, and Cowper are notable exceptions. Only a 
 portion of nature's art-galleries is open to man's unaided 
 eyes. 
 
 127 65 From Spring. 
 131 66 Ftoto. Autumn. 
 
 — — With the exciting sense that I was utterly alone in literary 
 London and trafficking with the black arts in a way to 
 loose the thunders of the literary bishops about my head, 
 I began to read the Seasons and went on reading them 
 in horrid heresy unto the very end. The truth is that it 
 is snobbish to leave Thomson in the dustbin — ^to wit, the 
 outside book-boxes in the Charing Cross Road. Not that 
 one holds with the hymnal ecstasies, ancient and modern, 
 of some textbooks. The eighteenth-century critics appear 
 to regard Thomson as the bull in the china-shop or the 
 spirited stallion escaped among the flower-beds. " The 
 natural fervour of the man," they and even later biogra- 
 phers write, "overpowered the rules of the scholar." 
 " The power of Thomson lay not in his art, but the exu- 
 berance of his genius . . . The poetic glow is spread over 
 all." Another finds him " all negligence and nature," 
 pouring forth an unpremeditated song, which has " all 
 the rudeness and luxuriance of its theme." " His 
 Spring blossoms and gives forth its beauty like a daisied 
 meadow ; and his summer landscapes have all the sultry 
 warmth and green luxuriance of June." Coleridge's 
 view is truer to the facts : " The love of nature seems to 
 have led Thomson to a cheerful religion ; and a gloomy 
 religion to have led Cowper to a love of nature. The one 
 would carry his fellow-men along with him into nature ; 
 the other flies to nature from his fellow-men. In chastity 
 of diction, however, and the harmony of blank verse 
 (in which the Seasons is written) Cowper leaves Thomson 
 immeasurably below him, yet I still feel the latter to have 
 been the bom poet." Thomson is indeed a bom poet, not 
 a star-crazy, flame-haired planet-conjurer as another 
 Thomson said of Shelley and his early apologists seem to 
 
NOTES 379 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 think of him, but a poet of a true if sober and tenuous 
 imagination, of a seeing eye and a fertile imagery — all 
 pruned and weeded and lawned like a London park by the 
 routine sentiments and phraseology of the " Age of 
 Reason." \ 
 
 It is profitable to read him steadily (he died middle-aged 
 in 1748), for the poet is always cropping up, and breaking 
 out inexpressibly like an imp of mischief in Dr. Thwackem's 
 Academy, or as a sprig in the mutilated limes of our 
 suburbs, or the good in us bad men. He should be heard on 
 the ' ' British Fair. ' ' He draws the line at their taking part 
 in the " sportive fury " of fox-hunting : " Let not such 
 horrid joy E'er stain the bosom of the British Fair." 
 Theirs but to " teach the lute to languish," floating the 
 limbs in " the loose simplicity of dress " ; for them " 'tis 
 graceful to dissolve in woe " and " from the smallest 
 violence to shrink." Mixed nutting, however, he allows. 
 So he goes lumbering on, moralising and philosophising 
 with all the apparent self-enjoyment of the born bore — 
 until he flowers into this passage on migration. There is 
 more of it, and I have not read elsewhere a passage so true 
 to the tumult, the giddiness, the mighty precipitance of 
 migration. Ajid these passages, or it may be stray lines 
 and metaphors and adjectives (" the light-footed dews ") 
 are as common as poppies in a cornfield. I could give a 
 score of them, and some of them long, out of each " Sea- 
 son." 
 
 Thomson's Tightness of feeling, again, as of one who saw 
 with his heart as well as his eyes, is not the least taking 
 thing about him. He was a poet of a very heretical 
 humanity in a Squire Western age. 
 '33 67 Jago, a Comishman, friend of Shenstone, and author of 
 the long, unreadable Edgehill, is a poet who deserves 
 to be known at least as well as his stilted friend. True 
 Sensibility, as distinguished from the eighteenth-century 
 brand, need not fear to admit this poem as one of the 
 faithful from the ranks of the pretenders ; nor Simplicity 
 a follower whose clothes are not his heart. 
 137 68 (1) A curious anticipation of the modem discoveries as to 
 the territorial rights exercised by birds. I have omitted 
 the last few stanzas of this poem. Jago is one of the very 
 few eighteenth-century poets who without effort or revolt 
 or conscious purpose has subdued the conventions in which 
 he wrote, and to which he was unswervingly loyal, into 
 passable poetic expression. Rushy meads, vocal throngs, 
 finny monsters, happy lawns, verdant alleys, genial 
 prospects, rural trains, grateful pastures, balmy dews, 
 sportive lambs, and pleasing themes — ^the old familiar 
 faces visit us in mobs. But they affect us less artificially 
 
38o NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 than Wordsworth himself, who often wrote exactly in the 
 manner of the eighteenth-century pastoralists, does. This 
 is not in the least to say that Jago is an immortal missed 
 his crown, but that we read about nymphs in groves just 
 as though they were girls in woods, so essentially does the 
 author's serene, innocent, unconscious truth to himself, 
 to his feelings and his idea of nature assimilate all the 
 makeshifts and artifices of the dreariest idiom ever 
 invented by literary foppery. He is the least assertive of 
 writers, and his words are like China ornaments on the 
 mantelpiece of a seaside lodging-house. It is amazing 
 he should get anywhere with such trumpery. The second 
 stanza of this poem says nothing, and yet Spring is caught 
 into the rusty snare. The feeling in the lines is just right 
 and true, and the gaudy word-decoys of " The hounds of 
 spring are on winter's traces ..." clatter empty in the 
 wind. 
 
 It is interesting that more or less about the time that Logan 
 was burgling Bruce 's Cuckoo poems (see p. 139) Gilbert 
 West (see Dr. J^ohnson's Lives) was staking a claim 
 to Jago's Blackbirds. I am indebted to Mr. J. C. Squire 
 for putting me on Jago's track. 
 139 69 The authorship of this taking poem, which Wordsworth 
 knew and probably took as a model (there are lines in it 
 as beautiful as any in his), as he did Vaughan's The 
 Retreat, was attributed to John Logan. Bruce's papers 
 fell into Logan's hands at his death at the age of 21 (in 
 1767), and he published the poems under his own name. 
 Burke was so struck with it that he sought out Logan, 
 who can hardly have been happy at receiving the praises 
 of another man's work. It is romantic to think of him 
 as overwhelmed with contrition at the circumstsince ; 
 before such a vengeance of the injured, he was more likely 
 to have acknowledged the truth of " odere quem laeseris." 
 The controversy as to the authorship of the poem is not, 
 however, completely settled. In 1892 was published 
 " a complete vindication of the Rev. John Logan from the 
 charge of stealing the hymns of Michael Bruce " by 
 W. T. Maston. It was answered by James Mackenzie in 
 his Life of Michael Bruce (1905). 
 
 141 70 (1) Goldfinch. 
 
 — — («) Bless. 
 
 — — (») Plundered. 
 
 — — (*) Different-coloured stripes. 
 
 — — (•) Marvels. 
 
 — — («) Trial-piece. 
 
 — — (') Cherished. 
 
 142 — (") Snares. 
 
 — — («) Shut. 
 
NOTES 381 
 
 PAGE NO, 
 
 142 70 {!•) Daisied. 
 
 — — (") Resort. 
 
 — — (") Without strength. 
 
 — — (") Body. 
 
 — — (") Look. 
 
 — — (") Lads. 
 
 — — (") Flattery. 
 
 — — (") Haughty. 
 
 — — (18) Huff. 
 
 143 — (") Devil a fly. 
 
 — — (»») Gloomy. 
 
 — — (») BiU. 
 
 — — {") Lose. 
 
 — — (») Heed. 
 
 — — (**) Box for meal. 
 
 — — (»") Prostitute. 
 
 People in the south country have long forgotten the Gilbert 
 White of Edinburgh in the seventies of the Age of Reason, 
 to some extent the model of Bums and the author of 
 poems like the Ode to Pity, On Night, The Sow of Feeling, 
 The Farmer's Ingle (the obvious parent of the Cottar's 
 Saturday Night), Guid Braid Claeth, Auld Reekie, Cauler 
 Water, and others. Fergusson's work is sketchy (he was 
 murdered in his 24th year), but it is warm and real and 
 human; and for a happy dancing burlesque, a sparkle 
 and quickness of perception in portraits of tjrpes and 
 town manners, a fertility of expression and tenderness of 
 feeling (rarely kindled to intensity), and a kind of whim- 
 sical mock-solemnity, he had a touch of genius— the 
 doomed, the luckless wretch. 
 
 Fergusson was bom in Edinburgh in r 750. From his early 
 boyhood he suffered from religion and bad health, and 
 there is a story that he once went weeping to his mother, 
 begging to be whipped; " O mother I " he cried, " he that 
 spareth the rod hateth the child." At St. Andrews, where 
 he was sent to prepare himself for imparting devil-worship 
 to others, he first began to commit " the sin of rhyme " 
 (I quote from a sympathetic biography published to his 
 poems in 1807) ; and as sin is sweet and human flesh is 
 frail, he left St. Andrews drenched in evil, and was 
 promptly ejected from his uncle's house for another 
 crime — ^that of shabbiness. So he became an assistant in 
 the of5ce of the Commissary-clerk in Edinburgh, and in 
 this situation he began to run down the short and steep 
 road of dissipation which led the pious and respectable 
 elements in his native city finally to spew him out of their 
 mouths. He failed in " the acquisition of business 
 habits " ; he preferred the company of tavern-parties to 
 that of the Methodists ; he played little pranks on the 
 
382 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 devout ; he published ribaldries in Ruddiman's Weekly 
 Magazine ; and — ^lie began to question the authenticity of 
 the fall of man, on the ground that the doctrine was 
 inconsistent with the love and mercy of God. What can 
 have possessed a man of such parts, brought up in the 
 knowledge of a prosperous and religious society, to have 
 associated its deity with pity, with anything merciful or 
 loving, is not related in this parable of unrighteousness. 
 At any rate, the divine vengeance did not sleep. Robert, 
 courted for his wit and brilliance by all the publicans and 
 sinners of the city, became on somewhat free terms with 
 the former, and, coming home from his potations one 
 night, he fell down and got a slight concussion of the brain. 
 This was followed by all the torments of remorse, and, 
 while in this wildered state, he was induced to take the 
 air with a company of friends and carried off post-haste 
 to the asylum. When he discovered the trick he " uttered 
 a scream of horror and despair," and little it availed him, 
 for two months later he died " in the solitude of his cell," 
 " without a hand to help or an eye to pity him," and with 
 Bedlam raging about him. Edinburgh and Methodism 
 went on with their business. We are a little more 
 genteel to-day, and the poetic sprite within us is not a 
 blasphemy, but a luxury, as well regarded as a hat- 
 ribbon. 
 
 Half Fergusson's poems are in the vernacular, half in 
 eighteenth-century English. His poems were first pub- 
 lished in 1773. 
 144 71 From Poems, Epistles, etc. Cp. Hardy's The Wagtail and 
 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's Sed nos qui vivimus. One of 
 Bums's Letters has the following : " I never hear the 
 loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or 
 the mild cadence of a troop of grey plovers in an autumn 
 morning without feeling an elevation of soul like the 
 enthusiasm of devotion or poetry." 
 
 A bird's fear of man is no more a germinal legacy than 
 his song. Both are individual and acquired through 
 filial imitation. Darwin pushed a Galapagos hawk off 
 his perch with the muzzle of his gun, and the explorers of 
 Mount Everest had birds come and perch on their shoulders 
 in the higher regions. Robinson Crusoe might have 
 detected the presence of man on his island as soon as he 
 landed, had he had a little natural history among his 
 other accomplishments. And if man ever ceases to be 
 the demon of the universe in the eyes of other animals, we 
 shall in this respect realise once more the conditions belong- 
 ing to the flintless ancestors of Pithecanthropus Erectus. 
 From humanoids with their eoliths to twentieth-century 
 man with his gun, we have never ceased to pursue birds. 
 
NOTES 383 
 
 FACE NO. 
 
 Yet as soon as we lay aside our instinct to prey upon 
 them, they lay aside their acquired fears of us. The 
 quick-minded, educable bird learns in no time to dis- 
 tinguish a human well-wisher from an enemy. 
 
 146 72 From Songs and Ballads. It would be gross to criticise 
 
 this perfect poem on the ground that woodlarks don't 
 complain. The woodlark is the sweetest singer we 
 have, and so, one is inclined to say, is Burns. If the 
 woodlark sings like Burns and Burns like the woodlark, 
 shall not the " truth to nature " prevail ? " If poetry 
 comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree," writes 
 Keats, " it had better not come at all." There are 
 other ways 3f " imitating nature " than by the copyist's. 
 But I am bound to say that the " woodlark " here is 
 the tree-pipit. 
 
 147 73 From " A rosebush by my early walk " {Songs and 
 
 Ballads). To detach this piece from the context is 
 perhaps to pluck a petal from the brier ; but how dear, 
 how perfect, the morsel ! 
 
 148 74 Even when Bums forces himself into the dress-suit of an 
 
 alien language, which he wears like a parvenu, his true 
 feeling, his genuineness, his tenderness as a, man and a 
 brother to life emerge. This attractive poem was sent 
 me by a friend and is, I believe, very little known. 
 
 149 75 Verses 7, 8, 9, and 10. How fresh and springlike comes 
 
 the music of a poet who has plucked his notes from nature's 
 own wild garden ! The bittern was a mere obitu- 
 ary notice a few years ago. Thanks to zealous pro- 
 tection in Norfolk, a bird I have had the privilege 
 of hearing "roar" like the looms of life is coming 
 alive again. 
 
 — — (1) Roar. 
 
 — — (2) Elvish. 
 _ _ (s) Wakeful. 
 
 150 76 From Songs and Ballads. 
 
 — — (1) Not, of course, the waterhen (merehen), but the " moor 
 
 fowl " or red grouse. 
 
 151 77 From The Task, " The Winter Morning Walk." 
 153 79 Translated from Vincent Bourne. 
 
 156 81 Rousseau held that all fables which attribute rational 
 faculties and speech to animals should be withheld from 
 children, as conveying deception. The bullfinch, for 
 all the colour-tune of its plumage and the soft 
 modulation of its flute, receives the scantiest notice 
 from the poets. 
 
 — — These story-poems of Cowper's possess something of the 
 
 sprightliness, grace, and lovableness of his letters. There 
 seems a tendency to depreciate Cowper nowadays, and 
 one modern poet has been so wanting in taste and dis- 
 cernment as to say of him that he " creeps upon common 
 
384 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 place." It is an unintelligible criticism, because Cowper 
 did know so supremely well how to write, and to his 
 reader, therefore, is superior to the profoundest philo- 
 sopher, the most original psychologist, who cannot. 
 As Bagehot says of him : " There is no writer more ex- 
 clusively English." His, surely, is the easiest, plainest, 
 most talking pen of any English author except Bunyan, 
 and directed by a human soul as winning as Lamb's or 
 Goldsmith's. It is partly because he so often writes just 
 for fun. Nature, indeed, was little more to him than a 
 refined and placid recreation, a refuge from what Festus 
 calls " soul- wrack." Who but a churl would not rejoice 
 to play with Cowper ? 
 158 82 In Nature in Downland, Mr. W. H. Hudson has the follow- 
 ing passage : " These [Sussex minor singers] are now 
 forgotten, and their works will never come back ; for 
 though important in their own day, they were, viewed 
 at this distance, little people who could have no place 
 with the immortals. But I do not despise them on that 
 account. Being of that tribe myself, I have a kindly 
 feeling for little people, not for the living only, who write 
 in the modem fashion and are by some thought great, 
 but also for those who have been long dead, whose fame 
 has withered and wasted in the grave. And for the last 
 of the few singers I have mentioned I cherish a very special- 
 regard, and should not like to tell how the forgotten name 
 of Hurdis came by chance to be associated in my mind 
 with the South Downs." Mr. Hudson then describes 
 how he came upon some extracts from Hurdis in a volume 
 of Shenstone selections in his Argentine home, and how 
 they lived in his memory long after he came to England. 
 " A Bird's Nest " (from the Village Curate) is one of the 
 passages he quotes. A long passage in The Favourite 
 Village (1800) describes the snaring of wheatears by the 
 shepherds for the Brighton luxury market. 
 If, indeed, a writer of the pigmy stature of Mr. Hudson has 
 " a very special regard " for Parson Hurdis, it behoves 
 us, who, thus graded, can hardly be picked out under the 
 microscope, to keep an eye for the tiny trefoils of the long 
 grass as we go our ways over the great earth. A taste for 
 small things " not quite so fair as many are," for the har- 
 vest mice of the literary landscape (Mus hyblaensis) is 
 not altogether forbidden to the anthologist. The poetic 
 empjrrean may well hold terrors for the homely, and there 
 is a place for the tiny musical boxes in the poets' orchestra. 
 We like their twitterings, and it gives us a shock of pleasure 
 to find a minute head with the swollen cheeks of toothache 
 embossed on the capital of a soaring fluted pillar in the 
 cathedral. There are, indeed, two conditions attached. 
 
NOTES 385 
 
 PAGE HO. 
 
 Beauty must break in somewhere, and our quest for 
 these animulae must not be met by false pretences. A 
 hint of swagger, of swollen head rather than cheeks, and 
 down goes every defence of the minor poem. But I 
 cannot think that those plain leaves and grasses I 
 have attempted to mingle occasionally with the flowers 
 in this volume are an offence. 
 
 159 83 From The Favourite Village, Book IV. Practically all 
 the work on this plane of descriptive verse is much of a 
 muchness, but this appears to me a specimen rather 
 superior to its fellows. 
 
 161 84 Crabbe, called " Pope in worsted stockings," and by 
 Bj^ron " Nature's sternest painter," is at his best as a 
 nature poet in littoral landscape and particularly as the 
 engraver in heroic couplets of Aldeburgh, his birthplace. 
 If God created heaven and earth, he left Aldeburgh 
 to Crabbe, for its grey sea, shingled beach, and flat salt- 
 marches are Crabbe to the life. While White is still the 
 familiar of Selbome, Crabbe to this day attends upon 
 Aldeburgh, and covers it with the mantle of his own 
 seaside pea (Lathurus maritimus) which grows there so 
 abundantly and is somehow so characteristic of him. 
 
 1 63 85 The biography of the hapless Robert Fergusson (see p. 38 1 ) , 
 
 prefixed to the 1807 edition of his work, is dedicated to 
 Grahame. He was first an advocate, but was ordained in 
 1809 in London. When first married, Grahame discovered 
 that his wife thought but meanly of his poetry, and this, 
 no doubt, was his main reason for publishing The Sabboth 
 anonymously in 1804. It charmed him to find Mrs. 
 Grahame in raptures over " the descriptive beauty, the 
 vivid historical illustrations, the moving sentimental 
 pictures, and the deep religious earnestness of a poem that 
 is Scottish to the core ; and he then awowed the author- 
 ship." In 1808 he issued his poems in two volumes. As 
 poet of the Sabboth Grahame was admired by Scott, and 
 Byron sneered at him in English Bards and Scotch Re- 
 viewers. In 1806 he published his Birds of Scotland in 
 verse, which has more descriptive ingenuity than 
 ornithological knowledge. 
 
 164 86 From The Birds of Scotland (1806). It is hardly necessary 
 
 to point out that this piece is chosen as a specimen of very 
 little known and competent descriptive verse, rather than 
 for poetic distinction. 
 
 — — (*) Viz. red grouse or " moor fowl. " 
 
 — — (') The young are usually from seven to ten, and mottled 
 
 and streaked (chestnut and buff) would be a more correct 
 description than " spotted." 
 
 (■) The young are chiefly fed on caterpillars, though 
 leaves and ling shoots are also eaten. 
 
 25 
 
386 NOTES 
 
 FACE HO. 
 
 166 87 From Northairs English Folk-Rhymes (1892). 
 
 This rhyme is from Gloucestershire. A variant from 
 Nottinghamshire is : 
 
 " Coo-pe-coo, 
 Me and my poor two. 
 
 Two sticks across and a little piece of moss. 
 And it will do, do, do." 
 
 167 88 From Swainson's Provincial Names and Folklore of British 
 
 Birds. 
 
 168 89 From Northall's English Folk-Rhymes. The rhyme 
 
 (which comes from Warwickshire) no doubt owes its 
 origin to the tradition of a drop of blood from the Cross 
 falling on the robin's breast. The tradition of the swal- 
 low is that it hovered over the Cross, crying " Svala I 
 Svala 1 " (Console I Console I ) : hence it was called Svalow 
 (the bird of consolation) : cp. Brewster's Dictionary of 
 Phrase and Fable. 
 
 169 90 YioirL SvfZ.iason's Provincial Names and Folklore of British 
 
 Birds. This is from Northumberland, and there are 
 variants for Durham, Berkshire, and Lancashire. As 
 these variants predict weal or woe from the numbers 
 seen quite contrarily from one another, I imagine that 
 neither one nor the other was taken too much to heart. 
 But we modems mostly see one for sorrow all right, though 
 in Pembrokeshire I have seen twenty-three for an un- 
 forgotten joy, fluttering like pied butterflies of Brobding- 
 nag about the face of an ancient monolith — an uncur- 
 taining of lost days of plenty. 
 
 173 91 Vrora. Songs of Innocence (lyZg). 
 
 174 92 From the RossettiMSS. (1793-I811). 
 
 175 93 From Poetical Sketches (1783). 
 
 176 94 From Milton (1804). Blake is nature imparadised, and 
 
 he lived in it all his life. His poetry can scarcely be criti- 
 cised ; it must be loved or feared, as we accept or shun 
 the first principles of things. It is bedrock, the flaming 
 heart of life, and his use of gold both in his art and his 
 poems, the colour of fire, of the sun of delight, is second 
 nature to him. It is extraordinary that Lamb, Words- 
 worth, and other of the Romantic poets who read him, 
 never seemed to have an inkling that the entire philo- 
 sophy and revolution of thought they helped to embody 
 are all in Blake, carried much farther and to the wth 
 degree. 
 180 96 We are sensible in this poem of a relief at meeting no 
 references whatever to " oary " feet, Leda and " the sad 
 dirge of her certain ending," thus silencing us from 
 grumbling over the " milky nest " and the "diamond water 
 
NOTES 387 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 drops " gathered from the surface of the lake. We have 
 a right to expect of Keats, whose spirit swayed so re- 
 sponsively to the rhythms of external nature that he (see 
 the Letters) entered into the life of the sparrow pecking 
 from the gravel, not to be above a little homely observa- 
 tion. Seldom has the swan had such good luck. Even from 
 the nineteenth century to the present day, a bird known as 
 the mute swan and as a large domesticated species hardly 
 difficult to see, has been sung as a singer, and the series is 
 beautifully rounded off by Mrs. Hemans's account of how 
 she stood up to the waist in reeds, eagerly hearkening to 
 a solitary swan " warbling his death-chant." The poet 
 replies that imagination is supreme over the noting of 
 mere phenomena. In plainer words, the seedy clout of 
 fabular tradition is a good enough substitute for " the 
 living garment " of natural truth. 
 
 181 97 Prom Hyperion, Book II. Keats does not exactly say 
 
 that the battle is to the beautiful rather than to the strong, 
 or that the survival of the fittest is another term for 
 the triumph of beauty. Yet it largely is so in bald science, 
 and the spectacle of the natural world is rather that of the 
 strength of beauty than the beauty of strength. The 
 fitnesses and the adaptations of living creatures are their 
 harmonies on the aesthetic plane. As Meredith said, 
 " ugliness is half-way to a thing," and the ugly, the inhar- 
 monious, the unworkmanlike, the unadaptable have been 
 weeded out in the struggle for existence. What to Huxley 
 was a gladiatorial show, with the best butcher reaping 
 the prize of life, has been in plainest truth a lists with 
 beauty for the champion. Only the ugly parasite 
 survives in degeneracy, and nature is but for this all 
 beauty because it is all fitness. From one point of view 
 evolution means nothing less than the unfolding of beauty. 
 
 182 98 From Miscellaneous Poems. 
 
 183 99 From Lines Written among the Euganean Hills (1819). 
 
 No poet has ever written about rooks as SheUey has. 
 Imagination here has no quarrel with reality, and SheUey 
 makes us feel that nature can never be understood or 
 described or felt or revealed except through the poetry of 
 verse or prose. The scientific method is simply devilling 
 for the poet, nature's only true interpreter. 
 
 184 100 From Act 2, Scene 2 (1820). 
 
 185 loi From Poems Written in 1818, published in two parts, the 
 
 first posthumously by Mrs. Shelley in 1824. 
 — — (') Compare with Milton's " Silence was pleased " and 
 
 Drummond's " Night attends, become all ear." 
 188 102 From Epipsychidion. The captive bird, of course, is 
 Emilia Viviani. Too many of the poets anthropomorphise 
 their birds ; Shelley, here, aviomorphises Emilia. 
 
388 NOTES 
 
 PACE 
 
 189 103 The concluding stanzas of CAaWeittaFifsi. The preceding 
 
 stanza, sung by Archy, the Court Fool, runs : 
 
 " Heigho ! the lark and the owl I 
 
 One flies the morning, and one lulls the night : — 
 Only the nightingale, poor, fond soul. 
 
 Sings like the fool through darkness and light." 
 
 Then foUow the two stanzas above in inverted commas. 
 
 190 104 Composed at Leghorn, 1820, and published with Pro- 
 
 metheus Unbound in the same year. It is strange that this 
 poem maintains so bright a fame. The silver cord of the 
 lyric is loosened and the golden bowl is broken ; the 
 cluster of meteorites bursts and the fragments blaze off 
 into the vast and are lost. The poem only stays alive, 
 in fact, by the matchless beauty of detached stanzas, 
 which might be hitched on to any other poetic wagon, 
 trundling after its star. 
 
 194 105 From Prometheus, Act 3, Scene 4 — " The Spirit of the 
 
 Earth." The preceding line begins: "All things had 
 put their evil nature off," and no kingfisher could presume 
 upon its possessing an unequal share of the brightness of 
 the visible world to continue a stubborn fisherman. 
 When Prometheus is unbound, the swallow must chase 
 the thistledown not the gnat, and Jove's eagle scoop 
 out the bulb with talons and hooked bill. The American 
 Belted Kingfisher (Ceryle Alc-yon) does very occasionally 
 vary its diet by feeding upon berries. 
 
 195 106 'Fxora Poems Written in i&zi. The poem has a quaint and 
 
 whimsical air, very unlike Shelley. I have omitted 
 the passage in The Revolt of Islam about the fight between 
 the eagle and the serpent, as being a tour deforce, an exer- 
 cise of opulent diction rather than a flight of imagination 
 or an emotional record of experience. 
 
 196 107 From Zapolya 1 A Christmas Tale (1817). The loveliest 
 
 song in the language, we say. But so many are I 
 
 197 108 From Sibylline Leaves, first printed in Lyrical Ballads, 
 
 1798. Apart from its excellencies, plainly unequal and 
 mingled with rather prosy solemnities, this poem is 
 interesting for its right thinking and rebuke to the 
 purely literary poet for exploiting birds to make copy 
 and depending on classical tradition to the perversion 
 of life and reality. Even Coleridge, however, who so 
 enriched our poetry by his acutely sensitive perceptions 
 of natural truth, commits himself to the nightingale's 
 "jug, jug," an utterance of the fabular bird and a libel 
 on the real. Only woodlark and nightingale have a 
 crescendo. 
 201 109 The problem of operating on the most wonderful lyrical- 
 narrative poem ever written has been a delicate one. To 
 
NOTES 389 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 have carved away the few stanzas strictly relating to the 
 albatross would have been to make a, fool both of the 
 bird and the poem. At first, then, I thought that, though 
 a great many poems can be as readily partitioned as 
 Ulster, and it is impossible to compile an anthology without 
 surgery. The Ancient Mariner had neither a Tyrone nor 
 a Fermeuiagh. I^ter reflection, however, led me to think 
 that portions of the sixth part (verses 92-97 and 
 107-109) and of the seventh (verses 11 8-1 32 and 135-138), 
 describing the spirit voices and the return to the harbour, 
 could be omitted without any serious hurt to the unity 
 of the poem, while at the same time concentrating its 
 general " birdiness," so to speak. For The Ancient 
 Mariner is, of course, a bird-poem even as an intact whole. 
 It is interesting to note that the landscape painting of 
 The Ancient Mariner is as deliberately precise, as scrupu- 
 lously defined as a seedsman's catalogue, and a poem more 
 richly dyed in magic than any other in the language 
 responds as promptly as a reflex action to Blake's " "To 
 generalise is to be an idiot. To particularise is the great 
 distinction of merit, " and Keats's " Distinctness is the 
 poet's luxury." 
 
 The triumph of The Ancient Mariner is that it is as true 
 as the needle to the magnetic pole to three worlds all 
 at once and in perfect harmony — ^the spiritual world, the 
 supernatural world, and the real world. It is the minute 
 and delicate actuality of the landscape-painting both 
 in The Ancient Mariner and Christabel which gives such 
 force and animation to the supernatural element in them. 
 Spenser made his own the truth of fairyland ; Coleridge 
 his the fairyland of truth. 
 2og 109 (1) A queer error for Coleridge's sharpness of perception 
 and power of definition. For, of course, the star would 
 be hidden by the moon's shadow. 
 — — {') Coleridge's Note. — " For the two last lines of this stanza 
 I am indebted to Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful 
 walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his 
 sister, in the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned, 
 and in part composed." 
 222 III (1) This is a poem beyond criticism, but one may venture 
 to be surprised at Wordsworth's choice of the greenfinch 
 as a presence of self-sufiicient enjoyment, since the bird 
 is sociable throughout the year, even nesting in small 
 colonies. No doubt Wordsworth actually saw a solitary 
 greenfinch, as one rarely does, and so was justified in mak- 
 ing it a symbol of solitude. 
 224 112 It may be vandalism to remark it, but the cuckoo is in 
 the worst possible moral odour since the publication of 
 Mr. Edgar Chance's The Cuckoo's Secret (1922). But 
 
390 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 great minds bother little about a sense of duty to others, 
 and the cuckoo at least is a masterpiece of business fore- 
 sight. 
 
 226 113 If there is a greater, there is also a lesser spotted wood- 
 
 pecker, who is little known, but very agreeable on 
 acquaintance. 
 
 227 114 The nest, as Wordsworth himself states, was on the largest 
 
 island of Rydal Water. 
 
 228 115 (i)This wonderful line seems to me to contain the whole 
 
 truth about nature-poetry, and to express in nine words 
 what I have been unable to do in more than 900 (see 
 Introduction). 
 
 229 116 This sonnet is to my mind a bird-poem. I've known 
 
 it by heart since childhood, and am still strangely 
 moved by it. Who can recall the tentative, half-toned 
 meditation of the robin's autumn song without feeling 
 that it is indeed adapted to the repose and evening of the 
 year ? 
 
 230 117 From The Excursion. Was there ever a harder poet to 
 
 anthologise than Wordsworth ? You have to get the 
 poet out of the President of the Board of Poetry ; and 
 when he commits a phrase like " With grace of motion 
 that might scarcely seem Inferior to the angelical," you 
 marvel that he ever wrote anything but business letters 
 as Hon. Secretary of the Westmorland Board of Guardians 
 (" With reference to your communication of the loth 
 ultimo . . .") in his life. Except for the absence of the 
 heroic couplet, it is impossible to distinguish some few 
 of these lines from the average pastoral verse of the 
 eighteenth century. And Wordsworth is sometimes 
 infected with the vices of the fashion he helped to destroy. 
 
 231 118 p) The poet really means the ring-dove, who has learned a 
 
 more mellifluous accent than the Yorkshire one of the 
 stock-dove. Granted that, how true to the spirit of these 
 birds — and to Wordsworth's own — the poem is 1 The 
 nightingale's is a burning love-song, passionate and wild 
 as the heart of Orpheus, with a crescendo like the 
 pale form of Eurydice rising from the dead — ^not 
 lachrymose as other poets say, and certainly not Words- 
 worthian. 
 
 232 119 This fine sonnet is little known. There are a number 
 
 of other bird-poems in Wordsworth, but they are spoiled 
 by the curious blend of prattle and solemn invocation 
 which occurs in so much of his inferior work. I hesitated 
 over and finally rejected A t the Corner of Wood Street . . , 
 as unworthy its reputation. 
 
 233 120 From Poetical Works. A good, plain neirrative which has 
 
 all the feel of a true story. 
 
 234 121 Inscribed on an urn in the flower-garden at Hafod. Rogers's 
 
NOTES 391 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 Poetical Works were published complete in 1875, with a 
 memoir by Edward BeU. 
 
 234 121 (1) What is it that gives man his true supremacy in the 
 
 world of earthly being — ^his arts, his inventions, his devas- 
 tating force, his mind, his social heritage ? Nature, 
 whether consciously or not, supplies her parallels to and 
 sources of them. Perhaps it is through the imaginative 
 kingdom revealed in this simple line. Man is great, he 
 is glorious, because he alone can become all other beings 
 and feel with them their loves, their hopes, their fears. 
 
 235 122 It is a nice problem whether to pass The Raven as a bird- 
 
 poem. If Poe's bird is a spectral, at least he is an atmo- 
 spheric raven, and of all the feathered tribes, his sable 
 dye is the richest soaked in sombre human legend, tragedy, 
 and association. The raven is to the Northern races 
 what the dove is to the Scriptures. He is " old, old, very 
 old," and haunts the Gothic fanes both of nature and the 
 imagination with so hieratic a presence and casting so 
 dark a spell that he seems to turn the primeval rocks 
 of his home into the symboUed shapes of uncreate night 
 and to wave his wings between the soaring bluffs of a 
 supernatural architecture. Thus Poe's Raven is the fami- 
 liar of the raven of earth, down to the very beat of the 
 deep vowel-sounds, echoing the rumble of his croak. 
 Mr. Glutton Brock calls The Raven " a tawdry thing," and 
 describes the intellectual force in it as applied " to the 
 problem of vulgar effects as if it had a task worthy of 
 itself." I think he is right : The Raven Is a kind of 
 mixture of Grand Guignol and pantomime. But the raven 
 is not only a sombre and majestic figure in legend and 
 tradition ; there is a grotesque, even clownish element, 
 too, and the poem does gather up the remnants of a 
 decaying legend. 
 241 123 From Nepenthe, 2nd Canto, a fragment privately printed 
 in 1839, and now rarissime. The very little attention 
 it attracted was largely hostile. Miss Mitford, however, 
 who talked about the poet in her Recollections, said of it : 
 " There is an intoxication about it that turns the brain. 
 Such a poet could never have been popular. But he 
 was a poet." But she never got through it, and Mr. 
 Ingram, who edited Sylvia, calls it just bizarre. Mr. R. A. 
 Streatfield, who reviewed Nepenthe in 1897, holds that it is 
 " more conspicuous for sustained imaginative power and 
 magnificent sonority of diction than any like poem between 
 the death of Byron and the rising star of Tennyson." 
 Nepenthe seems to owe much both to Shelley and Keats, 
 and is perhaps the finest of all Darley's works. But it is 
 fantasy, profuse in music and colour, uncertain on the 
 wing, which visits imagination's kingdom only as a 
 
392 NOTES 
 
 FACE NO. 
 
 bird of passage. I know of no other passage in our 
 literature which sings the hoopoe, enshrined in Arabic 
 legend. The ravens fed Elijah ; robin and wren are 
 " God Almighty's cock and hen " ; the eagle is the bird 
 of Jove, who also had a use for swans ; a divinity hedged 
 the Egyptian ibis, and the hoopoes protected the Prophet 
 from the midday sun. 
 242 124 From Sylvia (1827). The poet is of course entitled to his 
 phoenix, so long as he does not confuse it with jackdaws. 
 Darley was a bom phoenix-fancier — " And from these 
 create he can Shapes more real ..." If the phoenix 
 was hatched from the poet's flaming breast, it is his 
 nursling of immortality, and what was Barley's truth 
 must gointo ourlivingmuseumof rainbow wings. Where 
 there is no contact with reality, there can be no conflict 
 with it. 
 
 245 125 From Death's Jest Book (1850). Beddoes's Crow has a 
 
 rarer and truer grisliness by far than Poe's Raven. The 
 crow, a model of conjugal fidelity to the uxorious margin, 
 a pioneer with the rest of his tribe in the science of social 
 co-operation,the most intellectually advanced of any other 
 winged being short of the angels, and gifted with a rich, 
 if boisterous, sense of humour, is the Satan among birds 
 alike to poets, gamekeepers, and members of the Royal 
 Society for the Protection of Birds. 
 
 246 126 From Poetical Works, Brisbane, 1887 ; reprinted in The 
 
 Great Kinship. Except in the 14th line, I think the poem 
 manages to shoot the sentimental rapids, though not, 
 perhaps, with much to spare. Certainly I prefer a bird- 
 poem of this homespun to all the sham glitter of Meredith's 
 and Swinburne's. Nature is too wise and merciful to 
 endow her wilder children with tenacious memories. 
 Adams, the poet of " Songs of the Army of the Night " 
 (1888), "Tiberius" (1894), and other poems and novels, 
 had a noble spirit and genuine poetic power. But like many 
 another fine spirit he was embittered and spoiled by 
 hard circumstance and, in a way, by the very fire of 
 his heart. 
 
 By an error, the poem was placed a little too early in 
 the book. 
 
 248 128 (1) Bumbarrels = Long-tailed Tits. 
 
 249 129 From. Asylum Poems. 
 
 250 130 A good example of Clare's power of intimate observation. 
 
 253 132 This beautiful poem, among Clare's earliest, and dis- 
 covered by Mr. Blunden — ^who might almost be said to 
 have rewritten Clare, so completely has he restored him 
 to our generation — achieves a unity of form and finality 
 of detached vision rare with him. Clare abandons himself 
 so utterly to nature that he becomes like nature or nature's 
 
NOTES 393 
 
 PAGE NO. « 
 
 spirit, as no other " nature-poet " does. He does not, 
 for instance, anthropomorphise natural sights and sounds, 
 as they so often do, but, hardly consciously, talks on in 
 nature's own tones, his verse travelling on like a process 
 or movement of her own. It is this faculty of a budding, 
 leafing, and warbling verse which rouses the criticism 
 that Clare did not know when and how to come to an 
 artistic end, as Gray did not know how to " speak out." 
 He simply went on as nature goes on, until we think of his 
 song (as we do not of other singers, greater or less than he 
 and to whom we apply different standards) as — 
 
 " A noise like of a hidden brook. 
 In the leafy month of June, 
 That to the sleeping woods all night 
 Singeth a quiet tune." 
 
 But Song's Eternity is different, and catches into a fixed 
 and eternal form the everlastingness and continuity of 
 nature — of which, elsewhere, Clare is, as Vaughan says, 
 a natural " bright shoot." 
 
 255 134 (*)The usual number of the eggs of the quail (a very ir- 
 
 regular visitor and less abundant than it used to be) is 
 from seven to ten. Fifteen was a very abnormal clutch. 
 The cry whit, whit, whit is the origin of the name " wet 
 my foot " or " wet my lips." The bird winters in 
 Southern Europe and Northern and Tropical Africa. 
 
 256 135 (')Eggs are laid late in April. But the buntings are also 
 
 the latest among the finches to breed, sometimes having 
 second or third clutches as late as August. 
 
 257 136 From Arthur Symons's Poems by John Clare. The pre- 
 
 vious ones are from Edmund Blunden's and Alan Porter's 
 John Clare's Poems : Chiefly from Manuscript (1921), the 
 standard selected edition. 
 
 258 — (i) Lesser Redpolls. 
 
 — — (2) Probably the Cole-tit. 
 
 259 137 From The Life and Remains of John Clare, by J. L. 
 
 Cherry (1873). The text is abominably corrupt, and 
 I am indebted to Mr. Edmund Blunden for the correct 
 MS. reading. 
 261 138 From a MS. poem lent me by Mr. Blunden, an obvious 
 imitation of Bums. 
 
 — — Clare is the only strictly nature-poet we or other nations 
 
 possess. His men, women, and children are part of the 
 landscape — ^they grow like flowers — and are not, as they 
 are in Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, BjTon, and Keats, 
 moralised and symbolised beings in a purposed relation- 
 ship with the universe. He resembles Bloomfield and his 
 type only in that neither of them were " peasant poets." 
 Bloomfield is a towny poetaster, writing about nature as 
 
394 NOTES 
 
 PACE HO. 
 
 from a countrified coffee-house. Clare's voice is the 
 whistling of leaves, the piping of bullfinches, the rustling 
 of streams, the droning of bees, because, mysteriously, he 
 is what they are in another medium or had a spirit so 
 transparent that they and all natural things filtered through 
 it. A portion of his expression is almost nothing more 
 than rhymed natural history, a literal picking of nature's 
 pocket without, so to speak, reinvesting the gains in the 
 poetic funds. But the " almost " makes all the difference. 
 Clare, whether wandering in fancy or rarefied fact, is 
 fastidiously concrete and precise, never the eloquent 
 professionalist, exploiting the object to the phrase. The 
 ordinary, the plain-speaking way of Clare, so instinctively 
 true to its object, gives even his flattest diarising a unique 
 personal and emotional quality. He sees rather than 
 describes nature, and even memory works through the 
 imagination. In a way peculiarly his own, he accom- 
 modated truth to nature with truth to poetry. His 
 best poems are neither pure data nor pure imagination, 
 but an individual blend of both which does express the 
 music of his own soul and the " inward stir of shadowed 
 melody " in nature in one. 
 
 Clare's was a native genius in the closest touch with the 
 soil ; he inherited a racial tradition in pastoral poetry 
 and approached his theme with no philosophy or set 
 aims. But over and beyond this is the power of his own 
 spiritual nature to identify itself with the dumb thought, 
 the inner life of nature, not as a visionary, but simply as 
 a lover. Except at the end and in moments of chance 
 musing, his most winning of spirits did not feel the pro- 
 found nostalgia of other poets, content only with a seventh 
 heaven reconciling the ultimate end of human thought 
 and feeling with the principles of all things. Neverthe- 
 less, the final value of Clare is that he does not imitate, 
 but creates his own world in the manner and within the 
 freedom of nature. It is thus he pours out his unpre- 
 meditated love — the most telling example in literature of 
 the truth that the gift of the spirit is not inconsistent 
 with a knowledge of its material works. 
 262 139 From Poetical Works. Some stanzas omitted. I have 
 a weakness for this diverting poem, which aims at a 
 kind of picaresque horror and achieves only a boisterous 
 but shrewd joviality — ^which is exactly the personality 
 of Corvus corone. 
 
 265 141 From Misconceptions. I have left out " O, to be in 
 
 England . . ." (not unwillingly), as not being primarily 
 a bird-poem. 
 
 266 142 From Fables in Song (1874). Goose-stepping, rhetori- 
 
 cal stuff, like much of loquacious Lytton's work, but rather 
 
NOTES 395 
 
 PAGE NO, 
 
 impressive as a storm of energy. I tramped fourteen 
 volumes to fetch this out, and I am not quite sure 
 whether my ambition or his merit finally won the fatiguing 
 day. 
 
 267 143 p) There is an old wassail song sung on New Year's Eve 
 
 which has : 
 
 " Little maid, little maid, troll the pin. 
 Open the door and we'll all roll in." 
 
 268 144 FromBaWer. P)"Marinere"is — ^like the West Countree — 
 
 suspect. And what is a " sea-mew " ? When the nymph 
 in the grove evolved into the girl in the wood, poetry 
 no less than reality was the better for it. No sea-mew 
 ever winged its way farther than the page ; no mavis 
 ever sang except upon the Igdrasil tree whose leaves are 
 made of paper. But in spite of this, and though the 
 swallow knoweth its appointed course, carries the 
 sign-posts in its head and even has in subconscious memory 
 its last year's clayey home, there is a real parallel between 
 its trackless wandering and the restlessness of the human 
 heart. 
 
 269 145 Published in 1821 with The Ages, Thanatopsis, Green 
 
 River, and other pieces. One of the most genuine of 
 bird-poems ever written, and justest of analogies between 
 human and bird life. 
 
 271 146 From Art (1865). It is a queer and moving experience 
 to find Thomson easing his heart of doom and all its 
 smart in the series of beguiling poems (of which this 
 is one) about the Thames and his love and Hampstead 
 Heath, following the terrors of unlifting night. 
 
 274 148 Several stanzas omitted. 
 — — (') A good echo of Swinburne. 
 
 276 149 Viz. : After the treaty between the birds and Maresnest 
 and Windbag, who sailed to the Bird-Paradise beyond the 
 Pole on an iceberg, to entreat the birds to repopulate the 
 earth, devoured by insects. 
 
 All from The Paradise of Birds (1889). The poem was 
 written when the Professor of Poetry was a young man. 
 There are extracts from it in Love's Meinie, Ruskin's sad 
 assay in ornithology, and Mr. W. H. Hudson writes of it as 
 " the finest poem in this [nineteenth] century, perhaps in 
 any century since man invented the art of imparting lessons 
 of wisdom by fable and allegory. " But the wish here is not 
 only father to the thought, but keeps it on a starvation 
 allowance. Courthope was only a copper Aristophanes, 
 the Squire Waterton of rhyme, and the poem excels in 
 fantasticalness, invention, humanity of feeling, gusto, 
 and the ingenious deplojrment of prejudice rather than in 
 power, wit, or beauty. But it is extremely jovial and 
 
396 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 racy ; its pedantry has all the flavour of robustious 
 scholarship (a tradition now lost), and with an educated 
 people it would long ago have made a famous panto- 
 mime with a serious moral. 
 278 150 From Lyric Poems. The answer to these questions is, 
 as the Parliament men say, in the negative. The nightin- 
 gale declares positively that he has never heard of Tereus, 
 that Philomela is no relation at all of his, and that, 
 with such unfortunate associations connected with the 
 name, he is very glad of it. His reply, bourgeois as it 
 sounds, is fair literary criticism. 
 
 280 151 FTomThyrsis. Clough died at Florence ini86i. Arnold, 
 
 no doubt, thought that the cuckoo migrated in June 
 because "in June, He changes his tune " (see p. 116), 
 a change also heard in the promiscuity of courtship. 
 Actually, the old birds do not go until August, and the 
 young remain in England up to the end of September. 
 The extract is a curious example of a poet's elaboration 
 of a beautiful concept not out of truth or imagination or 
 fancy, but out of a pure error of observation. The 
 charges of copyright have prevented me from including 
 an extract from Poor Matthias, which exhibits a reaction 
 against the excessive anthropomorphism toweirds nature, 
 not only of some poets, but Arnold himself. 
 
 281 152 From Flower Pieces and Day and Night Songs {1854). 
 
 283 153 Idem. 
 
 284 154 From Collected Sonnets {1868). 
 
 285 155 Idem. These two poems are inserted rather as characteris- 
 
 tic examples of the attitude of the mid-Victorian mind to 
 nature, than for conspicuous intrinsic merit. Not that 
 they are without grace of feeling and language, in spite 
 of the wooUiness of both in certain lines. On Startling 
 Some Pigeons is, indeed, so mixed with both, what with 
 the laborious padding of the middle and the dignity of the 
 close, that I hesitated for a week before including it. 
 Its tenderness won the day. Tennyson Turner has writ- 
 ten several other poems about birds — of right feeling, 
 fair observation, and with occasional felicities of phrase, 
 but very second-rate and sticky with sentiment. Put 
 your Sandford and Merton in your pocket, come forth and 
 muse upon the sweet creatures who inhabit God's good 
 earth — ^is the air of them. 
 
 286 156 I am no lover of Rossetti, but this poem is swept by an 
 
 obscure, tumultuous beauty, a disciplined wildness which 
 moves the soul. In some nature-poems we are repelled 
 by what seems to us a wrong way of commingling human 
 emotions with the life of nature. It is not the fact of the 
 association which hinders our full acquiescence in them — 
 if nature is not seen with emotion as well as truth, it is 
 
NOTES 397 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 not seen at all. We feel, in Blake's phrase, that they are 
 bending nature to themselves. Here it is different ; 
 the poet has chosen one of the many true and just ways 
 of drawing human symbols, parallels, and analogies from 
 nature. 
 
 289 158 Both from Miscellaneous Poems. For a detailed criticism 
 
 of the common view that Tennyson was a naturalist, see 
 Professor Miall's Round the Year. The other bird-poems 
 of Tennyson did not seem to me quite good enough for 
 inclusion. 
 
 290 159 From Sea-Drift (Leaves of Grass). If Keats's Ode is 
 
 the most perfect poem here collected and Mr. Stephens's 
 (see p. 326) The Song translates the abandon of bird- 
 flight and song in terms of the human soul's exultation 
 and desire more triumphantly than its brother-poems, 
 .the tragic grandeur of Whitman's poem seems to echo all 
 human sorrow, loss, and pathos in the dirge of the widowed 
 bird as no other poet has done. Yet the bird never 
 becomes a mere symbol ; its voice is dignified and made 
 sublime in the light of intense experience, so intense that 
 to read its lament aloud is to taste the ache and pity of 
 things to their depths. The very brokenness of the lines 
 represents a breaking heart made visible. 
 The late John Burroughs published a volume in 1884 
 called Birds and Poets with other Papers, in which he 
 quotes many bird-poems of a truly remarkable badness. 
 But in it there is a very interesting paper on Whitman, in 
 which he points out that the towering force of his per- 
 sonality was alone fitted in modem verse to assimilate 
 and interpret the majesty and hope of the new, creative 
 gospel of evolution. Rrofessor Clifiord calls him the 
 poet of " cosmic emotion " and he truly absorbs the vast 
 travail of life, stirred, quickened, transfigured from the 
 prostrate dust. " Rise after rise bow the phantoms 
 behind me." The sciences have dwindled man and Whit- 
 man exalts him, but rather as the prophet of his future 
 harmony and the priest who can alone read the mysteries 
 in the huge material processes of the ascending spirit. 
 
 298 160 From Sea-Drift. 
 
 299 161 From the " By the Roadside " section of Leaves of Grass. 
 
 No doubt, a personal experience for which all naturalists 
 would give their ears. 
 
 300 162 From Twilight Calm. Compare with Coleridge's The 
 
 Nightingale (p. 197). It is interesting that this subtle 
 and varied melodist, whose music sways and flows and 
 glances like flames, waxing and waning in an uncertain 
 wind, should have been the only modern poet to have 
 rediscovered, however partially, the secret of the seven- 
 teenth-century lyric cadence. 
 
398 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 But here is " her " again. The lark, as well as the 
 nightingale, is a frequent victim of this unbalanced 
 feminism. One of the poems of F. W. Bourdillon goes out 
 of its way to make the sky-lark the she-lark, when even the 
 rhyme does not call upon it to stretch a point in favour of 
 the fair. I am reminded of a passage in Stopford Brooke' s 
 study of Blake : " As to the songs themselves, they are as 
 gay, as sweet, as musical, and as tender as the song of 
 a mother-bird over her nestlings when the sunny wind is 
 playing in the tree." Poor Blake I Meeting these stock- 
 in-trade howlers again and again in certain poems compels 
 one to ask the question : Are birds, the most poetic of all 
 the volumes in nature's vast literature, nothing but a 
 kind of furniture to some poets — ^the high-priests of nature, 
 the readers of her soul and interpreters of her beauty ? 
 301 163 From Poems, 1893. •*■ third of them were printed in 
 1859. To make this mid-Victorian poem a person, it 
 must be Arabella Allen. 
 
 — — (^) The nightingale does not, of course, sing in its winter- 
 
 quarters. 
 
 — — (2) " Lissom " to the Victorians was what enamelled 
 
 pastures were to the Elizabethans, groves to the Georgians, 
 onyx and chrysopraze to the nineties, and what painted 
 apes and gingerbeer bottles are to the more advanced 
 modems. 
 
 303 164 From Minuscula (1897), siftings of volumes published 
 
 anonymously at Oxford in 1891, 1892, and 1894, with the 
 addition of a few from A iles d'A louette. 
 
 304 165 Fiom. A iles d'A louette. 
 
 305 166 Mr. Hardy, in the Preface to his own selection of Barnes 
 
 (Frowde, 1908), calls attention to this most lovable 
 poet's subtle and fastidious craftsmanship. He belongs^ 
 he says, to the literary school of Tennyson, Gray, and 
 Collins, rather than to that of the unpremeditating 
 dialect singer. " Primarily spontaneous, he was academic 
 closely after ; and we find him warbling his native wood- 
 notes with a watchful eye on the predetermined score, 
 a far remove from the populEir impression of him as 
 the naif and rude bard who sings only because he must." 
 He says, in fact, that he was only saved from a kind of 
 slavery to form by " the conditions of his scene, vocabulary, 
 and character." We find the same strange but happy 
 compound in his way of looking at the life and landscape 
 of nature. No country minstrel rune would speak of 
 the blackbird's " sweetest ditties " as in this lovely song. 
 
 — — (1) May. 
 
 — — (') Brushwood or branches. 
 
 — — {') Plashed 
 
 — — (*) Noon or afternoon meal. 
 
NOTES 399 
 
 NO. 
 
 306 167 From Songs of Seven. The last stanza but one of 
 
 Honours. A long poem in sense. The littlest thing true 
 to itself and to the law of its own substance is greater 
 than Truth, false, by the smallest deviation, to itself. As 
 Lecky used to say, a nation which falls below the ethical 
 standards of its own time is more immoral than one of a 
 lower status which keeps pace with those of its own time, 
 though absolutely the action of the latter is morally much 
 worse than that of the former. 
 
 307 168 From Songs of Seven. 
 
 311 172 Strictly no bird-poem ; but who could play the school- 
 master and expel this lovely changeling, singing the 
 epithalamion of science and religion ? 
 
 313 174 It is wonderful to see how Tabb contrives to catch the 
 
 mysteries of life and the exaltation of the soul with his 
 little decoys of epigram and paradox and the imagery of 
 the familiar and the particular, for at times the melodies 
 shaken out of these tiny musical-boxes are sublime. So, 
 in the reverse way, he surrounds a floweret, a lamb, a 
 fledgling with thunders, bodying forth great things by 
 small, and small things by great. He rimes the commonest 
 things with a magic veil and clothes the most majestic 
 in homely weeds ; and of some of his snowflake poems, 
 his filigree petals, we may well ask : 
 
 " Who hammered you, wrought you 
 From argentine vapour ? " 
 
 The poems here are taken from Mrs. Meynell's edition of 
 Poems and Later Poems. 
 
 314 175 From Miscellaneous Poems. To Thompson, moving with 
 
 precipitant vision in the celestial vasts, as one at home 
 there, small, fragile, intimate things were revealed with 
 a new poignancy, and the mood of this poem is not rare 
 with him. 
 316 176 From posthumous papers and fragments. " Sheath " in 
 1. 27 has been altered by the Poet laureate for the " sheaf " 
 of the MS. There are two other bird-poems in the author's 
 Poems (edited by the Poet Laureate), and of The Windhover 
 (kestrel) the author wrote : " that is the best thing I ever 
 wrote." But the second stanza is all dark with that 
 affected obscurity and harshly elaborated word-manner- 
 isms which have shut a powerful and visionary mind ofi 
 from many readers. Hopkins was conscious of the 
 oddities resulting from the pattern-making he called 
 " inscape," butless so of the perversities due to a robust- 
 ness of personality misapplied. His own preface to his 
 Poems should be studied for an understanding of their 
 peculiar methods of prosody and punctuation. The 
 Woodlark is so original and so utterly different from any 
 
400 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 other bird-poem in this book, that it is a joy to be able to 
 include it. After reading it many times and having 
 recently heard the woodlark (a very local bird) sing once 
 more, I think it catches the way and feeling of the bird 
 marvellously. In fact, Hopkins taught him his song. 
 318 177 From, the Bridge of Fire. There is an earlier and different 
 version, Flecker's often over-deliberate craftsmanship 
 never being content except to leave " a metal grace, a 
 graven joy," upon his work : 
 
 " Once a poor song-bird that had lost her way 
 Sang down in hell upon a blackened bough. 
 Till all the lazy ghosts remembered how 
 The forest trees stood up against the day. 
 
 " Then suddenly they knew that they had died. 
 Hearing this music mock their shadow-land ; 
 And some one there stole forth a timid hand 
 To draw a phantom brother to his side. 
 
 The pressing together of the poem by two syllables in 
 every line has squeezed out the superfluities and generali- 
 ties. It is thrilling to spy on the poet in his workshop and 
 see the shavings fly. 
 
 321 178 From Moments of Vision (1917). Mr. Hardy is still 
 almost alone among modem poets to recognise humanity 
 to animals as based equally upon reason as feeling, as, 
 that is to say, a logical consequence of Darwinism. His 
 poems reveal a tragic view of human evolution, and a 
 great one of human sympathies. 
 
 324 180 From Moments of Vision. The previous poem is from 
 Poems of the Past and Present, and is dated 1900. 
 The Robin is one of the happiest, most bird-like poems 
 in this volume, and the use of the run-on line is note- 
 worthy, for if there is a technique a bird can teach a 
 poet, it lies in this. It was the eighteenth century which 
 fixed the doctrine of the comma, semicolon, or full stop 
 at the end of the line like the pedagogue at the tail of a 
 crocodile of small boys, and the method was a protest and 
 reaction against the excessive serpentining of the heroic 
 couplet in the long heroic-pastorals of the preceding 
 century. Dryden and his heirs appeared to consider the 
 use of it as an outrageeftis innovation, a heresy against 
 the true faith of prosody, whereas the " father of English 
 poetry " made a copious and intricate use of the run-on 
 line. Of modern poets, Mr. Hodgson (who makes a techni- 
 cal triumph of it), Mr. de la Mare, and Mr. W. H. Davies 
 in Day's Black Star, use it to the will and direction of the 
 poetic purpose with great efiect. 
 
NOTES 401 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 325 181 From The Hill of Vision. Four stanzas, not essential to 
 the theme, movement, or character of this most radiant 
 poem, omitted. It has not, I believe, been ever reprinted, 
 but it is, to my mind, nearly the best in this collection, the 
 best bird--poexn. For it is the truth about birds, the 
 naked and the symbolic truth, the truth of what they are, 
 in semi-conscious joy, to themselves, the truth of their 
 being to the earth from whose bosom they flew, and the 
 truth of their revelation to the soul of man. We are 
 free, in fact, of the disharmony between the naturalist 
 and the poet of which we are conscious in some of the 
 poems of this volume. We seem here, even if partially, 
 to penetrate the mystery of the bird, its " cause of causes, 
 end of ends," which it is hard for us to read, because the 
 bird's evolution has been divergent from our own, and 
 our common ancestors are far, far beyond tte horizon of 
 the past, among the reptiles of the Mesozoic ages. We can 
 understand how birds have! a subjective appeal for us 
 when we view them as concrete projections of the invisible, 
 inarticulate waves of longing beating up from the human 
 soul. Watching them with the intense concentration of 
 the outward and the inward eye adjusted to each other, 
 we see at last — ourselves, escaped from the accidents of 
 sense by which we guide our lives and falling into the 
 surge of a music whose singers and players are the whole 
 of creation. What we need, whether we call ourselves 
 naturalists or nature -poets — and neither is truly himself 
 without something of the other — is not to humanise the 
 birds, but to wing our humanity in their pursuit — in the 
 due proportions of truth and imagination. This lovely 
 poem has accomplished it. 
 
 335 182 From The Adventures of Seumas Beg. The freshness, 
 spontaneity, and whole-hearted abandon of this gem is 
 achieved by studied and elaborate devices and patterns 
 of musical and metrical effect. It is true to the gladness 
 of Nature's infant morning, because it is truer still to the 
 craft and nature of lyrical form and expression. Copy- 
 right has lost me The Tree of the Bird from The Hill of 
 Vision and The Rivals from Songs from the Clay. 
 
 337 183 From The Last Blackbird (1907). 
 
 338 — (1) An odd banality. Mr, Hodgson's technique never lets 
 
 him down thus in his second period — ^that of Poems (1917). 
 
 340 184 From Poems (1917). Compare with the closing lines of 
 
 The Song of Honour. 
 
 341 185 Hymn to Moloch. If the objection to printing this spicy 
 
 poem is that it is a propagandist tract, the same criticism 
 applies to The Ancient Mariner. If humanitarianism 
 could shed its name and be recognised for what it is — a 
 great and integral branch of modern humanism — we 
 
 26 
 
402 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 should hear less of the narrow view that the vision of 
 natural beauty unviolated is not the business of the 
 creators of poetic beauty, always provided that such feel- 
 ing is absorbed into the poetic values and their expression. 
 The Hymn to Moloch has a bibliographical interest. It 
 was written in 192 1, to eissist the Plumage Bill Group 
 in its campaign against the traflSc in birds for millinery, 
 and was given to Mr. Holbrook Jackson, a vice-president 
 of the Group, who was associated with Mr. Hodgson 
 as the publicist in the enterprise of the " Flying Fame " 
 chapbooks in 19 12 and who privately printed the poem 
 in a beautiful little paper edition, limited to fifty copies. 
 It was the first poem with which Mr. Hodgson broke a 
 silence of six years. 
 343 186 From The Song of Honour, Flying Fame Broadsides (1913). 
 It is a great pity that the charges made for copyright 
 have prevented me from using The Sedge Warbler and 
 The Great Auk's Death from The Last Blackbird (1907). 
 But The Missel Thrush from this volume and Stupidity 
 Street — as good science as it is poetry — and an extract from 
 The Song of Honour from Poems (191 7) are enough for 
 my purpose. Set side by side, they show a remarkable 
 leap or flight forward in technical mastery between the 
 two groups. The earlier poems are uncertain in handling 
 and somewhat rough and harsh in expression ; the latter 
 are of the soul of melody, with a corresponding gain in 
 the power manifest in the former. The use of the run-on 
 line, for instance, is rare in The Last Blackbird ; in Poems 
 it is a characteristic device and gives so fluid, rapid, and 
 sinuous a pace to the Ijnrical movement, to such an efiect 
 of light and beauty, that it is a wonder the example has 
 not been more generally followed. Of the elvish, frail 
 loveliness of Eve there is no sign in the earlier volume, nor 
 of any evolution up to the mighty vision of The Song 
 of Honour have we any but ancestral gleams. Tokens of 
 growth between the two groups are absent. One might 
 almost say that the real link between them (apart from 
 the imprint of an obviously magnetic and fiery personality) 
 is the feeling for birds. Except Mr. Stephens, Mr. Hardy, 
 and Mr. Davies, no other modem poet comes near it. 
 Not libraries of expert ornithology can give you the stamp 
 and cut and rig of a particular bird, as Mr. Hodgson can 
 in a line or two. He is beautifully at home with it. 
 I remember once walking with him over sand-dunes in 
 Cornwall with oyster-catchers on the strand below us. 
 They were like " notes of music," and that was the 
 first and last word to be said about oyster-catchers on 
 the " ribbed sea-sand." So in the more intimate appre- 
 ciation of bird-biography. 
 
NOTES 403 
 
 PAGE HO. 
 
 This is not irrelevant comment. Mr. Hodgson is that 
 rarest, though proper and natural, compound, a poet- 
 naturalist. His earlier poems show him recording Eind 
 interpreting the life of the bird ; in his later, like Mr. De la 
 Mare in The Linnet, Mr. Stephens in Fifteen Acres, and 
 Coleridge in the song from Zapolya, he absorbs the melody 
 of birds into his own poetic medium. Mr. De la Mare has 
 learned the language intuitively, like the polyglot 
 princesses of old; he is not a naturalist, as, in my 
 opinion, it would do no harm for all modem poets who 
 write about nature to be in some measure. But Mr. 
 Hodgson has learned his through natural history working 
 in accord with the divine gift. 
 345 187 From Songs of the Fields (1915). Ledwidge was an Irish 
 peasant poet. Killed in action July 31, 19 17. This 
 poem, therefore, and the two following, should strictly 
 go into the previous group. Their moral place, however, 
 clearly belongs here, and here I have put them. Lord 
 Dunsany called him "the poet of the blackbird." 
 " With Homer it was the heroes, with Ledwidge it is the 
 smaU birds that sing, but in particular especially the 
 blackbird, whose cause he champions against all other 
 birds." Ledwidge, of course, is a secondary poet, and 
 belongs to the " geographical " (to quote Lord Dunsany) 
 type, which selects, reveals, and transforms the beauty of 
 the material world. There are many such Mercatora 
 among the poets, but it is surprising how little many of 
 them know their way about it. Ledwidge is not one of 
 these. We trust Ledwidge's familiarity with the earth 
 and that he is poetically competent to give us the assur- 
 ance, however, conveyed, that he knows the difference 
 between a hawk and a handsaw. Consideration of 
 copyright has compelled me to omit several other 
 bird-poems of tender and intimate grace from Led- 
 widge's work. 
 346 188 From Last Songs, Londonderry, September 20, 1916. 
 (g^7t89 From Magpies in Picardy. Cameron Wilson was a 
 captain, Sherwood Foresters ; killed in action March 23, 
 1918. In a poem written in his memory by his widow 
 (published in the Spectator) occurs the line : " He drew 
 his knowledge from the wild birds' songs." Here is a 
 little-known poet who knows his birds. The shedding 
 of the old poetic prejudice against the magpie reveals 
 a broader evolution of natural knowledge and sym- 
 pathies. 
 349 190 This poem has not been previously published, and was 
 specially written for the present volume. That is a high 
 favour, apart from the fact that it is Mr. Blunden's only 
 bird-poem [The Silver Bird of Herndyke Mill is on a 
 
404 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 different plane — ^and fishes are more in his line !] and the 
 presence of lines of classic beauty like — 
 
 " Till the sun 
 Is the bright hymn of nations of the air 
 And evening and the dream-like owl are one." 
 
 For his work is an inheritance from the English pastoral 
 tradition, a true type of continuity and of the persis- 
 tence of the past into the present. Just as our character 
 is an epitome of our whole history, individual and racial, 
 and yet is something special to itself, just as a living crea- 
 ture is a register of ancestral experience and yet is always 
 creating something new from the raw material of its 
 heritage, so Mr. Blunden's poems introduce a new fresh- 
 ness and reality into our pastoral poetry, while gathering 
 up the old substance. Nor is Mr. Blunden's truth to 
 nature in any way opposed to his truth to poetry. He 
 does not sacrifice imagination to observation, describing 
 to seeing, reproducing to translating and selecting, nor 
 vice versa. The precise and musical phrasing of his best 
 poems, their harmonious poise and serenity, their re- 
 strained but passionate sense of locality — of being in a 
 definite place and seeing definite things — show us that he 
 does not put fact and feeling into separate compartments, 
 and that his love and knowledge of the material world 
 of nature do not debar him from a poetic and spiritual 
 interpretation of it. He is a true and promises to be 
 a great poet, because experience and feeling are at one, 
 and expression is ample enough to embrace both. 
 351 191 The similarity of Mr. Davies's to the Elizabethan l5T:ic 
 is almost too obvious for comment, and the curious will 
 not fail to find numerous parallels of phrase as well as 
 mood. The famous opening lines of Sephestia's Song to 
 her Child : 
 
 " Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee. 
 When thou art old, there's grief enough for thee " — 
 
 are practically re-embodied, sentiment for sentiment 
 and not very far from word for word, in the modern's : 
 
 " What makes thee weep so, little child : 
 What cause hast thou for all this grief ? 
 When thou art old much cause may be. 
 And tears will bring thee no relief." 
 
 But the modern variant is born not of imitation, but a 
 kind of intuitive memory — an extraordinary outcrop in 
 an age which has evolved as fundamentally from the 
 
NOTES 405 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 Elizabethan habit of mind and method of expression as 
 from the Lombardy poplar avenue effect of the heroic 
 couplet. There are two lines of divergence, however, 
 between the man in our midst and the age so remote in 
 the poetic fashion of its song-books. The Elizabethan 
 lyric was a convention, a formal mosaic which sub- 
 ordinated language to music ; its appeal was more to the 
 ear than to the eye. Mr. Davies writes to be read, not 
 sung, and achieves a much greater variety, range, and 
 economy of expression. But what really separates them 
 are their totally different ways of looking at the world, 
 the natural world. Mr. Davies is no naturalist, as Clare 
 was, nor metaphysician of nature, like Wordsworth, and 
 the love of women— the primum mobile of the lyric — 
 often colours his personal reading of nature. But his 
 handling of love is often — ^well, natural, in the human sense, 
 and he never, or rarely, treats birds, beasts, and bushes 
 as symbols of his delight in love. They are more often a 
 permanent refuge from it and (as he conceives it) its 
 passing delirium. But that refuge is in itself a flame, the 
 essence of life, and, contentedly, he warms both hands at it. 
 He is so like his dead brothers in song, but between them 
 Nature has risen to her own life and looks at him with 
 eyes truer and more lover-like than women's. The copy- 
 right barrier has prevented me from including Raptures, 
 Jenny Wren, The East in Gold, Robin Redbreast, The King- 
 fisher, The Owl, A Great Time, and The Hawk from 
 Collected Poems (1916), Mr. Davies's own selection of his 
 works , from which this poem is taken as a typical specimen. 
 Note the run-on line in the poem given, a technical device 
 rare with Mr. Davies. 
 
 352 192 From Tomfooleries by Tomfool. There is a sandals-and- 
 
 Jager air about many of the songs of the humane com- 
 pany from which this gay and tender poet is quite free. 
 
 353 193 From Poems (1913). If the " conquest of nature " 
 
 meant but what this beautiful poem reveals in such tender 
 meditation, how much richer and happier should we, 
 now living, be ! 
 /3W) 194 From The Buzzards (1921). Mr. Armstrong's poems are 
 ^^^^^ largely in the pose of still life ; their rich, contrasted 
 
 dyes are susceptible to a play, not of soul or of music, but 
 of effects of light. But his Buzzards are not stuffed, and 
 his verse seems to expand and flow to their great spiral 
 curves and sweeping, crescentic lines. The calm wings of 
 the soaring buzzard seem to fill the lungs of the whole 
 landscape — its amphitheatre — to swing the horizon back 
 and enlarge the world in sight. These lines in their turn 
 seem capacious enough to contain the majestic pattern 
 of that flight. 
 
4o6 NOTES 
 
 PAGE NO. 
 
 The Thrush is omitted for reasons of copyright. 
 356 195 Fioia The Return of the Goldfinches {igzi). 
 
 359 196 From Windlestraw (1910), 
 
 360 197 First printed in TtweZf* Poe<s .' A Miscellany of New Verse 
 
 (1918). 
 
[I have inserted this poem here, haying omitted to send it until 
 too late for the text.] 
 
 CHRISTOPHER SMART 
 (1722-1770) 
 
 LXVIIlA 
 
 ON AN EAGLE CONFINED IN A COLLEGE COURT 
 
 Imperial bird, who wont to soar 
 
 High o'er the rolling cloud 
 Where Hyperborean mountains hoar 
 
 Their heads in ether shroud — 
 Thou servant of almighty Jove, 
 Who, free and swift as thought, could'st rove 
 
 To the bleak north's extremest goal ; 
 Thou who magnanimous could'st bear 
 The sovereign thunderer's arms in air. 
 
 And shake thy native pole I 
 
 O cruel fate ! what barbarous hand. 
 
 What more than Gothic ire. 
 At some fierce tyrant's dread command. 
 
 To check they daring fire. 
 Has placed thee in this servile ceU, 
 Where discipline and dullness dwell. 
 
 Where genius ne'er was seen to roam ; 
 Where every selfish soul's at rest. 
 Nor ever quits the carnal breast, 
 
 But lurks and sneaks at home. 
 
 Though dimmed thine eye, and clipped thy wing. 
 
 So grov'ling, once so great, 
 The grief -inspired Muse shall sing 
 
 In tenderest lays thy fate. 
 What time by thee Scholastic Pride 
 Takes his precise, pedantic stride. 
 
 Nor on thy misery casts a care. 
 The stream of love n'er from his heart 
 Flows out, to act fair pity's part. 
 
 But stinks and stagnates there, 
 407 
 
4o8 CHRISTOPHER SMART 
 
 Yet useful still, hold to the throng — 
 
 Hold the reflecting glass — 
 That not untutored at thy wrong 
 
 The passenger may pass : 
 Thou type of wit and sense confined. 
 Cramped by the oppressors of the mind, 
 
 ■Who study downward on the ground ; 
 Type of the fall of Greece and Rome — 
 While more than mathematic gloom 
 
 Envelops all around. 
 
 [The first collected edition of Smart's poems was in 1791. It does 
 not include the Song to David, which, as might be expected, was 
 stillborn to an age whose Zion was Otranto. Kit Smart's clouded 
 and outcast life, with its strange mixture of prayer and drink, and 
 with a rough rarely smoothed by such large tolerance and loving- 
 kindness as Dr. Johnson's, is sharply reflected in the mordant and 
 bitter feeling of this poem.] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORS 
 
 Adams (Francis) . . 246 
 
 AUingbam (William) . 281 
 
 Anonymous 98, 166, 363 
 
 Armstrong (Martin) . . 355 
 
 Amolcl (Matthew) . .278 
 
 Barnes (William) . . 305 
 
 Bamfield (Richard) . . 66 
 
 Beddoes (Thomas Lovell) 245 
 Bede (The Venerable) . 33 
 Blake (William) . . 173 
 
 Blunden (Edmmid) . . 349 
 
 Bourdillon (Francis 
 
 William) . . .303 
 
 Browne (William, of Tavis- 
 tock) . ... 71 
 Browning (Elizabeth 
 
 Barrett) . . .264 
 
 Browning (Robert) . . 265 
 
 Bruce (Michael) . .139 
 
 Bryant (William CuUen) . 269 
 Bums (Robert) . . 144 
 
 Butler (Samuel) . . 119 
 
 Campbell (Thomas) . . 233 
 
 Cartwright (William) . 72 
 Gary (Patrick) . . 79 
 
 Chaucer (Geoffrey) . . 36 
 
 Clare (John) . . . 247 
 
 Coleridge (Samuel Taylor) . 196 
 Cook (Eliza) . . .262 
 Conrthope (William John) 272 
 Cowley (Abraham) . . 97 
 
 Co wper (William) . . 151 
 
 Crabbe (George) . .161 
 
 Crashaw (Richard) . . 81 
 
 Parley (George) . .241 
 
 Davies (W. H.) . .351 
 
 Dekker (Thomas) . . 70 
 
 Dobell (Sydney) , . 268 
 
 Douglas (Gavin) 
 
 52 
 
 Drayton (Michael) . 
 
 67 
 
 Drummond (William, 
 
 f 
 
 Hawthomden) 
 
 74 
 
 Dryden (John) 
 
 J 20 
 
 Dunbar (William) . 
 
 42 
 
 Far j eon (Eleanor) . 
 
 352 
 
 Fergusson (Robert) . 
 
 141 
 
 Flecker (James Elroy) 
 
 318 
 
 Gamett (Richard) . 
 
 301 
 
 Grahame (James) 
 
 163 
 
 Green (Matthew) . 
 
 123 
 
 Gwylym (David ap) 
 
 34 
 
 Hall (John, of Durham) 
 
 87 
 
 Hardy (Thomas) 
 
 321 
 
 Herrick (Robert) 
 
 88 
 
 Heywood (Thomas) . 
 
 76 
 
 Hodgson (Ralph) 
 
 337 
 
 Hopkins (Gerard Manley) 
 
 308 
 
 Hurdis (James) 
 
 158 
 
 Ingelow (Jean) 
 
 306 
 
 Jago (Richard) 
 
 133 
 
 James I of Scotland 
 
 41 
 
 Jonson (Ben) . 
 
 69 
 
 Keats (John) . 
 
 177 
 
 Kingsley (Henry) . 
 
 267 
 
 Ledwidge (Francis) . 
 
 345 
 
 Lyly (John) . 
 
 58 
 
 Lynd (Sylvia) . 
 
 356 
 
 Marvel (Andrew) 
 
 93 
 
 " Meredith (Owen) " 
 
 266 
 
 Meynell (Alice) 
 
 353 
 
 Milton (John) . 
 
 91 
 
 Montgomery (Alexander) 
 
 ■ 59 
 
 Nashe (Thomas) 
 
 57 
 
 409 
 
4IO 
 
 LIST OF AUTHORS 
 
 
 PACK 
 
 Poe (Edgar Allan) . 
 
 235 
 
 Pope (Alexander) . 
 
 125 
 
 Rogers (Samuel) 
 
 234 
 
 Rossetti (Christina). 
 
 300 
 
 Rossetti (Dante Gabriel) 
 
 286 
 
 Shakespeare (William) 
 
 60 
 
 SheUey (Percy Bysshe) 
 
 183 
 
 Sidney (Sir Philip) . 
 
 54 
 
 Skelton (John) 
 
 43 
 
 Smart (Christopher) 
 
 407 
 
 Spenser (Edmund) . 
 
 55 
 
 Squire (John Collings) 
 
 360 
 
 Stephens (James) . 
 
 325 
 
 Tabb (John Banister) . 310 
 
 Tennant (Pamela) . . 359 
 
 Tennyson (Alfred Lord) . 288 
 
 Thompson (Francis) . 316 
 
 Thomson (James) . .127 
 
 Thomson (James) . .271 
 
 Turner (Charles Tennyson) 284 
 
 Vanbrugh (Sir John) . 122 
 
 Vaughan (Henry, Silurist) 95 
 
 Wager (William) . . 53 
 
 Whitman (Walt) . . 290 
 
 Wilson (T. P. Cameron) . 347 
 
 Wordsworth (William) . 222 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 A hundred wings are dropt as soft as one 
 
 A linnet who had lost her way . 
 
 A Nightingale that all day long . 
 
 A parrot, from the Spanish main 
 
 A song of a nest 
 
 A sunny shaft did I behold 
 
 A widow bird sat mourning for her love 
 
 A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune 
 
 Above the russet clods the com is seen 
 
 Ah I that half bashful and half eager face . 
 
 And on the smaUe greend twistis sat . 
 
 As I was walking all alane .... 
 
 As it fell upon a day ..... 
 
 As rising from the vegetable world 
 
 At length the winter's howling blasts are o'er 
 
 Ay, many flowering islands lie . 
 
 Because you have no fear to mingle 
 Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed . 
 Bird of the mom ..... 
 
 Charon 1 O gentle Charon 1 let me woo thee 
 Come, blessed bird, and with thy sugared relish 
 Coo-oo, coo-oo ...... 
 
 Dark all without it knits : within 
 
 Dear Quirister, who from those shadows sends 
 
 Dishonoured Rock and Ruin ! that, by law . 
 
 Do you ask what the birds say ? The sparrow, the dove 
 
 Do you not hear the Aziola cry . 
 
 Ethereal minstrel I pilgrim of the sky. 
 
 Far better in its place the lowliest bird 
 Father of lights I what sunny seed 
 Foolish prater, what dost thou . 
 Four ducks on a pond .... 
 Frae fields where Spring her sweets has blawn 
 From this grey crag in ether islanded . 
 
 Good speed, for I this day .... 
 
 411 
 
 NO. 
 
 155 
 
 177 
 
 8o 
 
 I20 
 
 1 68 
 
 107 
 
 103 
 
 10 1 
 
 130 
 
 154 
 
 7 
 
 47 
 
 23 
 
 65 
 
 68 
 
 99 
 
 188 
 III 
 137 
 
 37 
 52 
 87 
 
 41 
 
 30 
 
 119 
 
 no 
 
 106 
 
 "5 
 
 167 
 42 
 44 
 
 153 
 70 
 
 142 
 
 38 
 
412 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 Had I no revelation but thy voice 
 
 Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove 
 
 Hail to thee, blithe spirit . 
 
 Happy choristers of air 
 
 Hark ! ah the Nightingale 
 
 Hark how the cheerful! birds do chaunt their lays 
 
 Hark ! that's the nightingale 
 
 Has God, thou fool ! work'd solely for thy good 
 
 He clasps the crag with crooked hands 
 
 He rose, and singing passed from sight 
 
 High is his perch, but humble is his home . 
 
 Hither thou com'st : the busy wind all night 
 
 How is't each bough a several music yields . 
 
 I am the nearest nightingale 
 
 I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake . 
 
 I cling and swing ..... 
 
 I have a black, black mind 
 
 I have a pretty titmouse .... 
 
 I lately saw, what now I sing 
 
 I leant upon a coppice gate 
 
 I love to see the old heath's withered brake 
 
 I saw the sun bum in the blue . 
 
 I saw with open eyes .... 
 
 I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 
 I wandered out one rainy day 
 
 If you have a carrier-dove .... 
 
 Imperial bird, who wont to soar 
 
 In April ....... 
 
 In early spring I watched two sparrows build 
 Is it that small black star .... 
 
 It is an ancient Mariner .... 
 
 It was my admiration .... 
 
 Jenny Wren fell sick .... 
 
 Led out for dead, let thy last kindness be . 
 Little trotty wagtail, he went in the rain 
 Love and harmony combine 
 
 Magdalen at Michael's gate 
 
 Man's life is like a Sparrow, mighty King 
 
 Man that is bom of a woman 
 
 Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood 
 
 Merry, merry sparrow .... 
 
 Mighty songs that miss decay 
 
 Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood . 
 
 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
 
 My roost is the creaking gibbet's beam 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 413 
 
 No cloud, no relique of the sunken day . 
 No longer fair, no longer sweet . 
 No noise is here, or none that hinders thought 
 Not the whole warbling grove in concert heard 
 Now ev'ry feathered tenant of the grove 
 Now may we follow on his curving flight 
 Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe 
 Now westward Sol has spent the richest beams 
 
 O Bird with heart of wassail 
 
 O Blackbird, who hath taught thee 
 
 O blest unfabled Incense Tree 
 
 O blithe new-comer I I have heard 
 
 O little singing bird . 
 
 O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray . 
 
 O Nightingale, thou surely art . 
 
 O Spring, I know thee I Seek for sweet surprise 
 
 O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay 
 
 O, the month of May, the merry month of May 
 
 O Thou who didst furnish .... 
 
 O windless haven of delight 
 
 Of all the birds that I do know . 
 
 Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning 
 
 Old Adam, the carrion crow 
 
 On the first of March . ... 
 
 Once on a time, a nightingale ... 
 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and 
 weary ...... 
 
 One bird, that ever with the wakening Spring 
 One, Sorrow ...... 
 
 Out of the cradle endlessly rocking 
 
 Out of the dusk a shadow .... 
 
 Ov all the birds upon the wing 
 
 Pack, clouds, away 1 and welcome, day 
 Pause where apart the fallen sparrow lies . 
 Poor captive bird I who, from thy narrow cage 
 
 Richt as the stem of day began to shine 
 
 Say, doth the dull soil .... 
 
 See 1 from the brake the whirring pheasant springs 
 
 Sing on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless bough 
 
 Sing me no more, sweet warbler, for the dart 
 
 Sing, merry birds, your cheerful notes 
 
 Skirting the river road (my forenoon walk, my rest) 
 
 So, some tempestuous mom in early June 
 
 So zestfully canst thou sing 
 
 Solitary wayfarer .... 
 
 Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop 
 
4H 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king 
 Swallow, that yearly art blown round the world 
 Sweet Bird, that sing'st away the early hours 
 Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight 
 Sweet-throated linnet small and brown 
 Swift through the yielding air I glide . 
 Sumer is icumen in . 
 Surcharged with discontent 
 
 Tak any brid, and put it in a cage 
 
 Teevo cheevo cheevio chee 
 
 Tell me not of joy : there's none . 
 
 The bird that sometime built within my breast 
 
 The Birds in kind have each obeyed . 
 
 The briddes that han left hir song 
 
 The cushat crouds, the corbie cries 
 
 The dove shall be a hawk in kind 
 
 The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn 
 
 The imperial Consort of the Fairy-King 
 
 The magpies in Picardy 
 
 The merle, the mavis, and the nichtingale 
 
 The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth 
 
 The nightingale, the organ of delight . 
 
 The ousel cock, so black of hue . 
 
 The pewit, swopping up and down 
 
 The pretty lark, climbing the welkin clear 
 
 The robin and the wren . 
 
 The sun had chased the mountain snow 
 
 The swallow, privileged above the rest 
 
 Ther mighte men the royal egle find . 
 
 There is a bird who, by his coat . 
 
 There's not a nook within this solemn pass 
 
 There, sharp and sudden, there I heard 
 
 There the eagle and the stork 
 
 There the voluptuous nightingales 
 
 This is a spray the bird clung to . 
 
 This guest of summer 
 
 This morning, lying couched amid the grass 
 
 Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring 
 
 Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm 
 
 Time was, when I was free as air 
 
 To-night this sunset spreads and golden wings 
 
 Tread lightly here, for here, 'tis said . 
 
 " Tweet," pipes the robin as the cat creeps by 
 
 Two nights thus passed : the lily-handed mom 
 
 View now the winter storm I above, one cloud 
 
 We are much honoured by your choice 
 What bird so sings, yet so does wail - . 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 What sweeter sight can ever charm the eye . 
 When Autumn scatters his departing gleams 
 When cats run home and light is come 
 When daffodils begin to peer .... 
 
 When daisies pied juid violets blue 
 
 When Dame Flora ...... 
 
 When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper 
 When I remember again ..... 
 
 When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave 
 When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen 
 When Spring is in the fields that stained your wing 
 When up aloft ..... 
 
 Where thou dwellest, in what grove . 
 While moonlight, silvering all the walls 
 Whil'st I beheld the neck of the dove. . 
 Whither, midst falling dew 
 Why are ye silent .... 
 
 Why, ye tenants of the lake 
 
 Wilt thou be gone ? it is not near day 
 
 With earliest spring, while yet in mountain cleughs 
 
 With that I saw two Swans of goodly hew 
 
 Within a budding grove 
 
 Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush 
 
 Within mankind's duration, so they say 
 
 Within the bush, her covert nest 
 
 Ye little birds that sit and sing . 
 You heavens proud above this earth . 
 
 415 
 
 HO. 
 190 
 
 66 
 j68 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 46 
 
 194 
 
 9 
 
 24 
 
 135 
 
 187 
 
 180 
 
 92 
 
 59 
 
 33 
 
 145 
 
 136 
 
 71 
 21 
 86 
 13 
 152 
 127 
 
 197 
 73 
 
 32 
 198 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney^ Ld.t 
 London and AyUsbury.