Upon a day, a merry day, When summer in her best, Like Sunday belles, prepares for play, And joins each merry guest, A maid, as wild as is a bird That never knew a cage,...
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...
A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on, And through this little gate that claps and bangs Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone? Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs...
Poets love Nature, and themselves are love. Though scorn of fools, and mock of idle pride. The vile in nature worthless deeds approve, They court the vile and spurn all good beside....
On Sunday mornings, freed from hard employ, How oft I mark the mischievous young boy With anxious haste his pole and lines provide, For make-shifts oft crook'd pins to thread were tied;...
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:...
Dropt here and there upon the flower I love the dew to see, For then returns the even's hour That is so dear to me, When silence reigns upon the plain, And night hides all, or nearly;...
Fill the foaming cups again, Let's be merry while we may; Man is foolish to complain When such joys are in his way: Cares may breed in peevish minds, Life at best is short and vain,...
There was a time, when love's young flowers With many a joy my bosom prest: Sweet hours of bliss!--but short are hours, Those hours are fled--and I'm distrest. I would not wish, in reason's spite;...
Let brutish hearts, as hard as stones, Mock The weak Muse's tender moans, As now she wails o'er Titty's bones With anguish deep; Doubtless o'er parent's dying groans They'd little weep. ...
Ye brown old oaks that spread the silent wood, How soothing sweet your stillness used to be; And still could bless, when wrapt in musing mood, But now confusion suits the best to me....
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? ...
Sweet is the violet, th' scented pea, Haunted by red-legged, sable bee, But sweeter far than all to me Is she I love so dearly; Than perfumed pea and sable bee, The face I love so dearly. ...
Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top The sweetest anthem autumn ever made And into mellow whispering calms would drop When showers fell on thy many coloured shade...
The Autumn's come again, And the clouds descend in rain, And the leaves are fast falling in the wood; The Summer's voice is still, Save the clacking of the mill...
The nodding oxeye bends before the wind, The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find, And prickly dogrose spite of its array Can't dare the blossom-seeking hand away,...
Wandering by the river's edge, I love to rustle through the sedge And through the woods of reed to tear Almost as high as bushes are. Yet, turning quick with shudder chill, As danger ever does from ill,...
"Tweet" pipes the robin as the cat creeps by Her nestling young that in the elderns lie, And then the bluecap tootles in its glee, Picking the flies from orchard apple tree,...
I've left my own old home of homes, Green fields and every pleasant place; The summer like a stranger comes, I pause and hardly know her face. I miss the hazel's happy green,...