That I, a Bard of hill and dale,
Have carolled, fancy free,
As if nor dove nor nightingale
Had heart or voice for me.

If such thy meaning, O forbear,
Sweet Bird! to do me wrong;
Love, blessed Love, is everywhere
The spirit of my song:

'Mid grove, and by the calm fireside,
Love animates my lyre—

That coo again!-'tis not to chide,
I feel, but to inspire.

20

1830

AM

XXVII

A WREN'S NEST

MONG the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little Wren's
In snugness may compare.

No door the tenement requires,
And seldom needs a laboured roof;
Yet is it to the fiercest sun

Impervious, and storm-proof:

So warm, so beautiful withal,
In perfect fitness for its aim,
That to the Kind by special grace
Their instinct surely came.

And when for their abodes they seek
An opportune recess,

The hermit has no finer eye

For shadowy quietness.

These find, 'mid ivied abbey-walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are pent-housed by a brae
That overhangs a brook.

There to the brooding bird her mate

Warbles by fits his low clear song ;

And by the busy streamlet both

Are sung to all day long.

1Ο

20

Or in sequestered lanes they build,
Where, till the flitting bird's return,
Her eggs within the nest repose,
Like relics in an urn.

But still, where general choice is good,
There is a better and a best;
And, among fairest objects, some
Are fairer than the rest;

This, one of those small builders proved
In a green covert, where, from out
The forehead of a pollard oak,
The leafy antlers sprout;

For She who planned the mossy lodge,
Mistrusting her evasive skill,

Had to a Primrose looked for aid
Her wishes to fulfil.

High on the trunk's projecting brow,
And fixed an infant's span above
The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest
The prettiest of the grove!

The treasure proudly did I show

To some whose minds without disdain Can turn to little things; but once Looked up for it in vain :

'Tis gone-a ruthless spoiler's prey, Who heeds not beauty, love, or song,

'Tis gone! (so seemed it) and we grieved Indignant at the wrong.

Just three days after, passing by

In clearer light the moss-built cell
I saw, espied its shaded mouth;
And felt that all was well.

30

50

The Primrose for a veil had spread
The largest of her upright leaves;

And thus, for purposes benign,
A simple flower deceives.

60

Concealed from friends who might disturb
Thy quiet with no ill intent,
Secure from evil eyes and hands
On barbarous plunder bent,

Rest, Mother-bird! and when thy young
Take flight, and thou art free to roam,
When withered is the guardian Flower,
And empty thy late home,

Think how ye prospered, thou and thine,
Amid the unviolated grove

Housed near the growing Primrose-tuft
In foresight, or in love.

70

1833

Y

XXVIII

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

YOU call it, 'Love lies bleeding,'—so you may, Though the red Flower, not prostrate, only droops,

As we have seen it here from day to day,

From month to month, life passing not away:
A flower how rich in sadness! Even thus stoops,
(Sentient by Grecian sculpture's marvellous power),
Thus leans, with hanging brow and body bent
Earthward in uncomplaining languishment,
The dying Gladiator. So, sad Flower!
('Tis Fancy guides me willing to be led,
Though by a slender thread),

So drooped Adonis, bathed in sanguine dew

Of his death-wound, when he from innocent air
The gentlest breath of resignation drew;

While Venus in a passion of despair
Rent, weeping over him, her golden hair
Spangled with drops of that celestial shower.
She suffered, as Immortals sometimes do;
But pangs more lasting far that Lover knew
Who first, weighed down by scorn, in some lone
bower

Did press this semblance of unpitied smart
Into the service of his constant heart,

ΤΟ

20

His own dejection, downcast Flower! could share With thine, and gave the mournful name which thou wilt ever bear.

Published 1842

N

XXIX

COMPANION TO THE FOREGOING

EVER enlivened with the liveliest ray

That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,
Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,

This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,
Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves,
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.

When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,
One after one submitting to their doom,

When her coevals each and all are fled,

What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed? 10

The old mythologists, more impressed than we

Of this late day by character in tree

Or herb that claimed peculiar sympathy,

Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,

Or with the language of the viewless air
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature's laws
But in Man's fortunes. Hence a thousand tales
Sung to the plaintive lyre in Grecian vales.
Nor doubt that something of their spirit swayed
The fancy-stricken Youth or heart-sick Maid,
Who, while each stood companionless and eyed
This undeparting Flower in crimson dyed,
Thought of a wound which death is slow to cure,
A fate that has endured and will endure,
And, patience coveting yet passion feeding,
Called the dejected Lingerer, Love lies Bleeding.

Through sunshine flitting from the bough

To nestle in the rock.

Transient deception! a gay freak

Of April's mimicries!

Those brilliant strangers, hailed with joy

Among the budding trees,

Proved last year's leaves, pushed from the spray
To frolic on the breeze.

20

Maternal Flora! show thy face,

And let thy hand be seen,

Thy hand here sprinkling tiny flowers,
That, as they touch the green,

Take root (so seems it) and look up
In honour of their Queen.
Yet, sooth, those little starry specks,
That not in vain aspired

To be confounded with live growths,
Most dainty, most admired,

Were only blossoms dropped from twigs
Of their own offspring tired.

Not such the World's illusive shows;
Her wingless flutterings,

Her blossoms which, though shed, outbrave
The floweret as it springs,

For the undeceived, smile as they may,

Are melancholy things:

But gentle Nature plays her part
With ever-varying wiles,

And transient feignings with plain truth
So well she reconciles,

That those fond Idlers most are pleased
Whom oftenest she beguiles.

20

30

1832

XXXI

THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES

HAT way look, my Infant, lo!

ΤΗ

What a pretty baby-show!

See the Kitten on the wall,

Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves-one-two-and three-
From the lofty elder-tree!

:

Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending,—
To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.

ΙΟ