Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same whom in my schoolboy days Which made me look a thousand ways To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen. And I can listen to thee yet; O blessed Bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place: That is fit home for Thee! WORDSWORTH. HELEN OF KIRKCONNEL I WISH I were where Helen lies! O that I were where Helen lies, Curst be the heart that thought the thought O think na ye my heart was sair, When my love dropt down and spak' nae mair! On fair Kirkconnel Lee. O Helen fair! O Helen chaste! I wish my grave were growing green, On fair Kirkconnel Lee. I wish I were where Helen lies! For her sake that died for me. TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON WHEN Love with unconfinèd wings Hovers within my gates; And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates: And fetter'd to her eye; The Gods that wanton in the air, When flowing cups run swiftly round Our careless heads with roses bound, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes that tipple in the deep, When, like committed linnets, I With shriller throat shall sing The sweetness, mercy, majesty, When I shall voice aloud, how good UNKNOWN. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. |