XIII. KEEN fitful gusts are whispering here and there Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily, That in a little cottage I have found; Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, And all his love for gentle Lycid' drown'd; Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd. XIV. To one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair And gentle tale of love and languishment? Returning home at evening, with an ear Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, He mourns that day so soon has glided by: E'en like the passage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently. XV. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. THE poetry of earth is never dead': When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. XVI. TO KOSCIUSKO. GOOD Kosciusko! thy great name alone Are changed to harmonies, for ever stealing Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne. It tells me too, that on a happy day, When some good spirit walks upon the earth, Thy name with Alfred's, and the great of yore, Gently commingling, gives tremendous birth To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away To where the great God lives for evermore. XVII. HAPPY is England! I could be content And half forget what world or worldling meant. Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters. |