O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!
To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant!
In little time a host of joys to bind,
And keep our souls in one eternal pant!
This morn, my friend, and yester- evening taught
Me how to harbour such a happy thought.
To Reynolds
“I was led into these thoughts, my dear Reynolds, by the beauty of the morning operating on a sense of idleness. I have not read any books—the morning said I was right. I had no idea but of the morning, and the Thrush said I was right, seeming to say—” (Letter to Reynolds, Feb., 1818.)
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars!
To thee the spring will be a harvest time.
O thou whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness, which thou feddest on
Night after night, when Phœbus was away!
To thee the spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge. I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge! I have none,
And yet the evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.
The Human Seasons
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto Heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
Extracts From An Opera
Their godships should pass this into a law,—
That when a man doth set himself in toil
After some beauty veiled far away,
Each step he took should make his lady’s hand
More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more fair.
And for each briar-berry he might eat
A kiss should bud upon the tree of love,
And pulp and ripen richer every hour,
To melt away upon the traveller’s lips.
Daisy’s Song
Sees not so much as I;
And the moon, all silver, proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.
And of the spring—the spring!
I lead the life of a king!
Couch’d in the teeming grass,
I spy each pretty lass.
I look where no one dares,
And I stare where no one stares;
And when the night is nigh,
Lambs bleat my lullaby.
Folly’s Song
And when maidens go a-Maying, Huzza, &c.
When a milk-pail is upset, Huzza, &c.
And the clothes left in the wet, Huzza, &c.
When the barrel’s set abroach, Huzza, &c.
When Kate Eyebrow keeps a coach, Huzza, &c.
When the pig is over-roasted, Huzza, &c.
And the cheese is over-toasted, Huzza, &c.
When Sir Snap is with his lawyer, Huzza, &c.
And Miss Chip has kiss’d the sawyer, Huzza, &c.
Perhaps her voice is not a nightingale’s,
Perhaps her teeth are not the fairest pearl;
Her eye-lashes may be, for aught I know,
Not longer than the May-fly’s small fan- horns;
There may not be one dimple on her hand,
And freckles many! Ah! a careless nurse,
In haste to teach the little thing to walk,
May have crumpt up a pair of Dran’s legs,
And warpt the ivory of a Juno’s neck.
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