I pluck Summer blossoms, And think of rich bosoms-- The bosoms I've leaned on, and worshipped, and won. The rich valley lilies, The wood daffodillies, Have been found in our rambles when Summer begun....
O Langley Bush! the shepherd's sacred shade, Thy hollow trunk oft gain'd a look from me; Full many a journey o'er the heath I've made, For such-like curious things I love to see....
My love she wears a cotton plaid, A bonnet of the straw; Her cheeks are leaves of roses spread, Her lips are like the haw. In truth she is as sweet a maid As true love ever saw. ...
How beautiful the summer night When birds roost on the mossy tree, When moon and stars are shining bright And home has gone the weary bee! Then Mary Bayfield seeks the glen,...
There's a bonny place in Scotland, Where a little spring is found; There Nature shows her honest face The whole year round. Where the whitethorn branches, full of may, Hung near the fountain's rim,...
The faint sun tipt the rising ground, No blustering wind, the air was still; The blue mist, thinly scatter'd round, Verg'd along the distant hill: Delightful morn! from labour free...
O it was a lorn and a dismal night, And the storm beat loud and high; Not a friendly light to guide me right Was there shining in the sky, When a lonely hut my wanderings met, Lost in a foreign land,...
A beautiful flower, that bedeck'd a mean pasture, In virgin perfection I found; Its fair bloom stood naked to every disaster, And deep the storm gather'd around:...
Mary, the day of love's pleasures has been, And the day is o'erclouded and gone; These eyes all their fulness of pleasure have seen, What they never again shall look on....
Swamps of wild rush-beds, and sloughs' squashy traces, Grounds of rough fallows with thistle and weed, Flats and low vallies of kingcups and daisies, Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed: ...
'T was on the banks of Ivory, 'neath the hawthorn-scented shade, Early one summer's morning, I met a lovely maid; Her hair hung o'er her shoulders broad, her eyes like suns did shine,...
A beanfield full in blossom smells as sweet As Araby, or groves of orange flowers; Black-eyed and white, and feathered to one's feet, How sweet they smell in morning's dewy hours!...
I cannot know what country owns thee now, With France's forest lilies on thy brow. When England knew thee thou wert passing fair; I never knew a foreign face so rare....
Though o'er the darksome northern hill Old ambush'd winter frowning flies, And faintly drifts his threatenings still In snowy sweet and blackening skies; Yet here the willow leaning lies...
Tis three years and a quarter since I left my own fireside To go aboard a ship through love, and plough the ocean wide. I crossed my native fields, where the scarlet poppies grew,...
Three times, sweet hawthorn! I have met thy bower, And thou hast gain'd my love, and I do feel An aching pain to leave thee: every flower Around thee opening doth new charms reveal,...
Sweet brook! I've met thee many a summer's day, And ventured fearless in thy shallow flood, And rambled oft thy sweet unwearied way, 'Neath willows cool that on thy margin stood,...