Poems and Lancashire Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now, summer's sunlight, glowing,
Streaks the woodland shade with gold;
And balmy winds are blowing
Softly o'er the moorland-wold;
Now sweet smells the bluebell,
'Neath the valley's leafy screen;
And thick grows the wild rose,
Clust'ring o'er the hedges green.
The fern adorns the moorland steep;
The smiling fields are flowered o'er;
And modest little daisies peep
Like children at a mother's door!

II

From dewy meadows springing,
Yonder blinding skies among,
The poet-lark is singing,
As if his heart was made of song!
While gladly and madly
In every grove the wild birds vie,
All tingling and mingling
In tipsy routs of lyric joy!
My throbbing heart with every part
Is dancing to the chorus near,—
The gush, the thrill,—the wizard trill—
Like drops of water tinkling clear!

III

The cottage matron, knitting
In her little garden, sings,
As wild birds, round her flitting,
Fan the blossom with their wings;

And twining, combining,
The honeysuckle and the rose,
Sweet shading, and braiding,
Round her winking lattice goes;
And wild bees through the flowers roam—
The little happy buzzing thieves!—
Here and there, with busy hum,
Rifling all the honeyed leaves.

IV

Now, hamlet urchins roaming,
All the sunny summer day,
From dewy morn till gloaming,
Through the rustling wildwood stray;
There blithely and lithely,
By warbling brook and sylvan grot,
They ramble and gambol,
All the busy world forgot;—

Like birds that wing the sunny air,
And warble in the tangled wild,
Unhaunted by the dreams of care,—
Oh, to be again a child!

V

Sweet scents and sunshine blending;
The wildwoods, in their leafy pride,
To the gentle south wind bending;—
Oh, the bonny summer tide!
The tinkling, the twinkling,
Where little limpid rivers lave;
The sipping, the dipping
Of wild-flowers in the gilded wave;—
The fruitful leas, the blooming trees,
The pleasant fields, embroidered fair;
The wild birds' little melodies,
Scattering gladness everywhere!