The frog, with reckoning leap, enjoys apart, Till now and then the woodcock frights his heart With brushing down to dip his dainty bill. A little bridge there is, a one-railed plank; Sometimes a poet from that bridge might see A Nymph reach downwards, holding by a bough With tresses o'er her brow, And with her white back stoop The pushing stream to scoop In a green gourd cup, shining sunnily. THE CLOUD. A FRAGMENT. As I stood thus, a neighbouring wood of elms Filling the solitude with panting tongues; At which the pines woke up Shaking their choral locks; and on the place There fell a shade as on an awe-struck face; And overhead, like a portentous rim Pulled over the wide world, to make all dim, A grave gigantic cloud came hugely uplifting him. It passed with it's slow shadow; and I saw Struck the all-coloured arch of his great eye, Scored on the ground it's conquering line; And the quick birds, for scorn of the great cloud, Like children after fear, were merry and loud. |