XXXIX. INVOCATION TO SPRING. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamour of waters and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendour and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, For the stars and the winds are unto her For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, For winter's rains and ruins are over, The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. A. C. Swinburne. XL. A MAYTIME WISH. I would the world could see thee as I behold thee, May I would all eyes could see thee, as I behold thee now, I would all ears could listen to thy merry-making, May, Then a louder song would greet us from thy orchestra of leaves, A form of life and beauty, I see thee, lovely May, Breathing balm upon the meadows from each sweetly scented spray; From the lilac and the hawthorn, and the furze upon the down, And the wall-flower by the wayside in its dress of cottage-brown. Would you see her as I see her, you must be where I have been, Where the oak-tree and the elm-tree and the beechen tree are seen; Where the bright and silvery poplars in their leafy beauty shine, And the bees are quaffing deeply from their chalices of wine. You must linger as I linger, in the shadow of each nook, Edward Capern. XLI. SPRING IN ENGLAND. Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough And after April when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, Robert Browning. XLII. THE MAGIC LAND. By woodland belt, by ocean bar, The full south breeze our foreheads fann'd, And, under many a yellow star, We dropped into the Magic Land. There, every sound and every sight Means more than sight or sound elsewhere; Each twilight star a two-fold light; Each rose a double redness, there. By ocean bar, by woodland belt, led, Our silent course a syren Through the wild wizard-work o'er head. We watched, toward the land of dreams, Was made the monster's rippling chain. We heard far off the syren's song; We caught the gleam of sea-maid's hair. The glimmering isles and rocks among, We moved thro' sparkling purple air. Then morning rose, and smote from far, Robert Bulwer Lytton. (Owen Meredith.) XLIII. THE SUNBEAM. Thou art no lingerer in monarch's hall- Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee? Thou art walking the billow, and ocean smiles; To the solemn depths of the forest shades, Thou tak'st thro' the dim church aisle thy way, And thou turnest not from the humblest grave, Sunbeam of summer! oh, what is like thee? The faith touching all things with hues of heaven! Mrs. Hemans. |