Where the broad sheepwalk bare and brown [Yields] scant grass pining after showers, And winds go fanning up and down The little strawy bents and nodding flowers,...
Maytime is to the meadows coming in, And cowslip peeps have gotten eer so big, And water blobs and all their golden kin Crowd round the shallows by the striding brig. Daisies and buttercups and ladysmocks...
Come, gentle Spring, and show thy varied greens In woods, and fields, and meadows, by clear brooks; Come, gentle Spring, and bring thy sweetest scenes, Where peace, with solitude, the loveliest looks;...
What charms does Nature at the spring put on, When hedges unperceived get stain'd in green; When even moss, that gathers on the stone, Crown'd with its little knobs of flowers is seen;...
Bowing adorers of the gale, Ye cowslips delicately pale, Upraise your loaded stems; Unfold your cups in splendour; speak! Who decked you with that ruddy streak And gilt your golden gems? ...
Where slanting banks are always with the sun The daisy is in blossom even now; And where warm patches by the hedges run The cottager when coming home from plough Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set....
The prim daisy's golden eye On the fallow land doth lie, Though the Spring is just begun: Pewits watch it all the day, And the skylark's nest of hay Is there by its dried leaves in the sun. ...
The passing traveller with wonder sees A deep and ancient stonepit full of trees; So deep and very deep the place has been, The church might stand within and not be seen....
Black grows the southern sky, betokening rain, And humming hive-bees homeward hurry bye: They feel the change; so let us shun the grain, And take the broad road while our feet are dry....
Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,...
How sweet, when weary, dropping on a bank, Turning a look around on things that be! E'en feather-headed grasses, spindling rank, A trembling to the breeze one loves to see;...
The sinking sun is taking leave, And sweetly gilds the edge of Eve, While huddling clouds of purple dye Gloomy hang the western sky. Crows crowd croaking over head, Hastening to the woods to bed....
How pleasant, when the heat of day is bye, And seething dew empurples round the hill Of the horizon, sweeping with the eye In easy circles, wander where we will!...
Now swarthy summer, by rude health embrowned, Precedence takes of rosy fingered spring; And laughing joy, with wild flowers pranked and crowned, A wild and giddy thing,...
The cocks have now the morn foretold, The sun again begins to peep, The shepherd, whistling to his fold, Unpens and frees the captive sheep. O'er pathless plains at early hours...
I Love to peep out on a summer's morn, Just as the scouting rabbit seeks her shed, And the coy hare squats nestling in the corn, Frit at the bow'd ear tott'ring o'er her head;...
How sweet I've wander'd bosom-deep in grain, When Summer's mellowing pencil sweeps his shade Of ripening tinges o'er the checquer'd plain: Light tawny oat-lands with a yellow blade;...
The wind waves oer the meadows green And shakes my own wild flowers And shifts about the moving scene Like the life of summer hours; The little bents with reedy head, The scarce seen shapes of flowers,...
The Sabbath-day, of every day the best, The poor mans happiness, a poor man sings; When labour has no claim to break his rest, And the light hours fly swift on easy wings....
The morning road is thronged with merry boys Who seek the water for their Sunday joys; They run to seek the shallow pit, and wade And dance about the water in the shade....