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Summer

An Invocation to Sleep; Fairy Revels; and Songs and Sonnets. By Cornelius Webb

Webbe, Cornelius

[epigraph]

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SUMMER.

Now the Summer's brow is brown,
Gladness 'tis to shun the town,
For the haunts of shade and dew;
And the skies of smokeless blue;
And the green and breezy hills;
And the ever-running rills,
Where their hidden way they take
By the foot of flowery brake,
By the poet's nooks and bowers,
Where the birds, and bees, and flowers,
Sing, and sip, and live their hours,
Thinking never of the morrow,
Knowing neither pain nor sorrow,
But, content with what is given,
Praise, and do the will of heaven.

We who are of heaven's making,
And have souls that should aspire,
Shall we not, from sloth awaking,
Shout a voice, or strike a lyre?
Nature, shall she work alone,
And be seen of brutes, or none?
Shall her flowers bloom and die,
Undelighting human eye?
Shall her music, ever-quiring,
On the earless air expiring,
Be, like tunings of the spheres,
Only heard of heavenly ears?
Shall her youth and age of greenness,
And her comeliness and cleanness,
And her seriousness and gladness,
That are constant without sadness,
Be like beauty to the blind,
Unbeheld, but of the mind?
Shall her seasons come and go
Like an inattractive show?
Never!—there are some are wiser;
There are poets still who prize her;
And immortal minds that yearn
Wisdom from her lips to learn;
And researchive eyes that read
Truth and worth in vilest weed.

Wake, then, dearest; let us prove
We are not too cold to love
Nature, and to reverence
Her from no deep-masked pretence,
But a homage high and holy,
That hath neither melancholy,
Nor a thought of pain or fear
To alloy it with a tear.
Let us, love, on rested feet,
Seek her in her temple's seat,
Under her blue dome of sheen;
On her altar's floor of green;
In her pillar'd aisles of trees,
Where her silver censers swing,
All her abbey incensing,
And her praiseful minstrels hymn
Holy airs and harmonies
Learn'd of her God's cherubim.

Hie we to the fields away,
While the innocent white Day
Blushes like the scarlet Shame
When she hears the voice of Blame!
Who with senseless Sleep would toy,
Sleep that sister is to Sloth;
Who to leave her bed be loth

As the cold Latmian boy,
While the beauteous Nature wakes,
Like fair Dian, for our sakes?—
Now the kine have left their lair,
And the creatures of the air,
Bee, and bird, and butterfly,
Rising, wing from earth to sky;
And the rabbit from his burrow
Slyly slinks adown deep furrow,
Where the green corn hides his route,
Looking fearfully about,
Lest the poacher's lurcher nigh
Track him, with far watchful eye,
To his haunts 'mid fragrant thyme,
And so bite him, 'ere his prime,
With sure teeth as tooth of Time;
And the early dew-worm creeps
Slowly round the little heaps
That about her caverns lie
Like the fairies' tumuli.

Now there are few clouds in heaven,
And the central one is riven,
And the sun comes bright between
Into ether blue and sheen,
Like a ship by ice-isles pent
Breaking strong impediment,

And in glory sailing on,
'Till its enterprize is won;
And the proud lark fills the sky
With his anthem loud and high;
And the giddy-whirling swallow
Leaves his hidden nightly hollow,
And careers around the river
On white wings he wetteth ever;
And the Lesbia-loved sparrow
Onward darteth like an arrow
Twang'd from bow of Robin Hood;
And the cuckoo in the wood
Gives a voice to solitude;
And the blackbird whistles oft
In the brake by fenced croft,
Which the ploughboy stills to hear,
Drawing to the thicket near,
Mimicking with whistle shrill
Something of his sweeter skill,
Then treads on with hopeless heart,
Learning only, to his smart,
(What is soon or late discerned,)
That nature is for art too learned;
And the mighty-throated thrush
Sends his voice out with a gush,

And a lengthened liquid note
Seems to rend his strained throat;—
What is best may still be mended:
Thus, his first rehearsal ended,
He records his song once more,
Sweetening what was sweet before;
Now he falls, and now he rises,
Till his own ear he surprises,
And elated, fluttering,
Claps his many-specked wing;
Like a poet who is proud,
When his lyre rings so loud,
That the hard-won worldly crowd
Listen silent to his lays,
Till they burst in one-voiced praise.

Now the bee about our ears
Hums a song that ever cheers;
Like yon merry maid at labour,
Wanting neither pipe nor tabor
To make music for that spirit
Which her bright heart doth inherit,
Where her lively pulses dance,
'Till they reach her countenance;—
Happier girl than happy bee,
May you sing thus constantly!

Now the brooks in silence run,
Lest their babbling tell the sun
Where they in thick sedges hide,
For his warm and thirsty mouth
Would their waters drink to drowth,
Though they were of Nilus' tide;
And the frog no longer leapeth,
But in sly recesses keepeth,
Which the ox made with deep heel,
Hiding close as close he can,
Lest the proudly-sailing swan
Snatch him up for her moist meal;
And the milky-breathing cow
Tears the grass with frequent low;
And the lusty bull, with eyne
Of amorous dullness, 'mong his kine
Rushes, like a bursting fire,
Hot with animal desire,
Wild and wanton, warm and reeking,
Like changed Jove changed Iö seeking.

Now the strong, unsparing mower
Levels with his scythe of power
Star-eyed daisies; and the flower
Children hold beneath their chins,
So to learn who 'tis that sins

When the butter's stolen by night;
And whose chin looks yellow bright,
He's the rogue; if no such luck,
Then 'tis ta'en by pilfering Puck.

Now the day is at its noon,
And the thrush hath hushed his tune;
And the deep-delighted dove,
Like a maid whose joy is love,
O'er her quiet passion broods
In the woods and solitudes:
Heard no more is the cuckoo;
And the lark is hushen too.
Under a green hedge's shade
Scanty scraps are coolly laid,
For the faint mowers' short repast,
Swallowed soon, with hungry haste.
Near them, but still where the Sun's
Fierce eye scorches, clicking runs
The light grasshopper—minstrel he
To their poor festivity:
Yet they hearken, weary-still,
To his busy voice and shrill,
Which doth wean their thoughts at will
From the theme they droop upon—
Rest's quick hour nearly gone!

And doth warn them, with voice small,
To enjoy the interval,
Till the tasker's voice shall call
Labour from his cool retreat,
To the noontide toil and heat,
And dilapidating sweat.

Now 'tis sweet, with maid or book,
Idling in some greenwood nook;
Or by smoothly-slipping brook,
Where the nimble minnow lies
Watchful for the falling flies,
That drop ever and anon,
Float a moment, and are gone;
Then some fine old moral draw,—
Some wise folly, Sancho-saw,—
How we mortals, weak as they,
Having buzzed our fleeting day,
Drop as suddenly as them
Into dark Oblivion's stream!
Sweet it is to wander lanes
Where no rut of wheeling wains
Crushes down their speary grass;
Where the gypsey's rugged ass,
Browsing, eyes you as you pass

With a drowsy, doubtful leer,
While his swarthy mistress near
Reads your face with subtle eye,
So to learn if she may try
Something of her cunning art
On an easy-cheated heart.

Now 'tis dainty-sweet to be
In full orchards, and there see,
All about your shaded head,
Richest fruits of rosy red;
Yellow, brown, and ruddy pears,
Ripening in soft southern airs;
And the Adam-tempting apple;
And the grape-vine, that will grapple
With its neighbours far and near,
Clinging here and creeping there;
And the downy peach and sleek,
Like an infant's careless cheek;
And the prim and plumpy pine;
And the bloomy nectarine:—
Or where rubious cherries peep
Through their green leaves at the lip
Of sweet Beauty, wandering by,
Blushing just as rosily.

Now is come the dewy eve:
And the night-bird on her thorn
Teacheth even Love to grieve;
And the pale moon and forlorn
Treads away, like Melancholy,
Far from the dull hum of Folly;
And the moonlight and swart shade
Move about in gloom and glade,
Like a handsome Moorish maid,
Amorous of some southern boy,
Met by stealth to kiss and toy,
Lapped in many-leaved bower,
Where the nightly, wakeful flower,
And the lime-tree's golden bloom,
Feed the air with faint perfume;
And the honeysuckle clambers
Like sweet lovers to the chambers
Of young beauties, beaming through
Windows with bright eyes and blue.

Now Sleep's mother, silent Night,
Torched by the bright stars' light,
Travels in her dusky car,
Whose still wheels do never jar,
Lest they wake her daughter dear,
(Sooner frighted than white Fear,)

Who hath doffed what Care encumbers
Light heads with, and softly slumbers,
Muffled in her mantle dark,
'Till the dewy-footed Dawn,
Who doth scare the turfed lark,
Rouse her up to see the morn. [OMITTED]

1820.

INVOCATION TO SLEEP.

Oh unkind Sleep, to shun a poet's bed,
And one, too, who would rather feel his head
Girt by thy poppy-crown, than garlanded
With Fame's immortal wreath, or coronal
Such as on shepherd's brow from fair hand falls,
When May, the Summer's mother, doth outcall
The winter-rested Sport from Indolence' halls,
Age from warm Christmas' bowers, jolly Delight,
And passionate Love and Beauty, to the sight
Of her, and her green haunts, and sylvan bowers,
Prankt in her choicest way, with all her sweetest flowers.

Last eve, thou badest me to thy modest bed,
And I obeyed and went—but thou wert fled,
Why gone I know, and where thou'rt palletted:
On Penury's bed of straw thou may'st be found;
With warriors sunk upon the tentless ground;
With mariners, wrecked the while by rock and surge,
Whose wave is their death-sheet, its howl their dirge.

The murderer sleeps; and he who dies to-morrow
Rests well to-night, and life from thee doth borrow
To die, and meet with strength the strength of Fate.
The beggar, too, laid at the rich man's gate,
He doth not woo thee, nor thy coming wait;
Thou'lt go to him, and kiss his eyes whilst weeping,
And bless his sorrows with a senseless sleeping.
For this one act of sweet humanity,
Thou shalt have little blame, if aught, of me,—
Not now like him, though deeper once in misery.

Thou shalt be chid as children by fond mothers,
As lovers chide their loves, sisters their brothers,
Or whispering winds the smooth Sicilian deep;
For I would win thee back, thou timid Sleep,
Not drive thee farther hence by over-boldness,
And to forgotten love add distance' coldness,—
Would thou wouldst come, as was thy wont—unbidden,
When, in my childhood's youth, all unaware
I've found me in thine arms, fallen from chair
(For fireside warmth placed snug in corner nook,)
Whilst poring drowsily the holy book,
In sullen silence read, with frequent look
Glanced sly asquint on toys usurped by elf
Happier than I, for that he pleased himself.
Then for thy coming thou wert rudely chidden

By petulant nurses, never loth to scold;
Or gentler grandame, with her voice of old,
Who only seemed to chide, and vainly strove
To hide with feigned frown the breaking smile of love.

Yet thou wouldst come and come, despite their chiding,
And make my home the ark of thine abiding,—
Though I would shake thy poppies from my brow,
And force thy fingers from my lids. But now—
Now youth's brief day is at its eve,—and care
Hath ploughed my forehead with sharp, gradual share,
And sown the early seeds of sorrow there,—
To fly me now, when more than ever needed,—
When joy is so like madness, that 'tis dreaded,—
To shun the tumult thy calm hush should soothe,
And leave the pillow thy sleek hands should smoothe;
How, when I think of this, can I but blame thee;
How with my former fondness can I name thee,
Thou, Sleep, who shouldst give rest, and not annoy—
Contrary thing—unfixed, unkind, and coy,—
That wilt not bed with Grief, nor with her brother, Joy!

I woo thee, Sleep, but do not hope to win;
For to all studious wights thou aye hast been

Lothful and coy. Yet will I thee beseech,
In meekest manner, and in smoothest speech,
To lap me in unconsciousness, and lay
Me, weary of dull night, on thy soft couch till day!

If thou dost hear, come now to him who bids
With as faint voice, and feeble, quiet breath
As some have bade thy readier brother, Death!
But ah! thou shunnest eyes which seldom steep
In dews Lethean, but watch and wane, and weep
Hot, painful tears, in full and frequent showers;
Thou lovest brows less marked than mine, and lids
Which knit as lightly as the lids of flowers
That close when Phœbus shuns the viny bowers
Which woo him from his way awhile with ease,
To show him their red grapes and mellowing trees,
When he would bathe his forehead faint in cooling seas.

Oh willing bedmate of young Life; fair mocker
Of Death; husher of garrulous Noise; locker
Unheard of chamber-doors; love-patient rocker
Of frequent-waking Infancy; brightener
Of Beauty's waning eyes; tenderest lightener
Of heavy hearts, and strained, laborious limbs;
Young comforter of Age; listener to muttered
And faint prayers, to evening's vesper-hymns,
To secrets only in thine ear safe-uttered,

And broken thoughts told in imperfect word;
Healthiest bracer of the slackened cords
That bind the impatient, ever-winging soul
To its dark house of earth and prisoning-goal;—
Listen, whilst I invoke thee, by the breathings
Of famed poets to thy praise; by all wreathings
Of thy flushed poppy, drowsiest of flowers;
By all chaste sleepers in thy silent bowers;
By the first sleeper, Adam—when his eyes,
Waking to love, and beauty, and surprise,
Her viewed who perfected his paradise;
By Milton's forest-sleep, when Beauty cast
Her soul's eyes on him, as along she past,
Yet loitered long enough to lose her heart;
By Lucrece' ravished rest; by Richard's start
From the king-haunted bed; by Juliet's sleep,
Death-like and fatal; by him that, on the steep
Of Latmus, resting on a rosy couch,
Won Dian down, who waked him with warm touch;
By the clown's charmed sleep, when the Fay-queen
Grew gloating-amorous of his mulish mein;
By the observed sleep of Imogen;
By Desdemona's broken sleep—the last
Her jealous lord could break, when with blind haste
He crushed her breath, as breath of angels chaste,—
I here invoke thee, Sleep, and vow to thee,
That in my proudest wreath thy flower shall blended be.

In this sixth hour, which darkness yet doth keep
Unrightfully from light, Delight might leap
(Were Summer reigning, and thou willing, Sleep,)
From thy warm couch and darkened dormitory,
And to the fields of morn, in her youth's glory,
Rush breathlessly, to drink a balmier breath,
And wear the rose of life on cheeks half-stained with death.

But Winter, lover of thy lengthened reign,
And kindliness, and rest from cold and pain;
Winter, who chills the summer-amorous swallow
Into that rest he loathes, and bids him hollow
A hidden hole where he till Spring may dwell;
Winter, who bolts the eremite in his cell,
And with heaped snow entombs rude Lapland's huts;
Winter, the cold of heart, who sternly shuts
His door on houseless need, and by his fire
Hears his faint prayer and dying voice expire;
Winter forbids this joy, for which I yearn
Much as sick mariners, when they discern,
With eyes deluded, in the sea's green wave,
Fields, flowered and fresh, and plunge, and find a grave.

But for thee, Sleep, and thy strange waywardness,
What visions might have come this night to bless;

I perhaps had dreamed of scenes Arcadian,
Had seen chaste Syrinx' flight, and lusty Pan
Panting with painful sides, bloated with speed
In hunting down that virgin, till her need
Was known of heaven, who changed her to a reed;
Had heard the shagged Satyrs' hideous laugh
At Pan's discomfiture, which he did quaff
With ears erect, and reddening with strong anger,
Had marked the horrid route and deafening clangour
Of Comus' issuing to his orgies lewd,
With monstrous crew of Bacchants, drunken-rude,
Out-driving darkness from her midnight wood
With glow and glare of many a flaring torch,
Which, as they rush, the under dry leaves scorch;
Had dashed from the close tempter's hand the cup
Dangerous to virtue, ere it was lifted up
To her discreet, sweet lip; had walked unseen,
Though close-companioned, with those brothers twain,
Their sister, Chasteness, seeking through a night
Dark as its deeds of lewdness; and had lent
Attentive note to their warm argument
And high, which Boötes, wheeling his slow wain
Along the plains of heaven, halted to hear;
The whilst those airy beings who make flight,
On heavenly missions, nightly to this sphere,

Won by truth's holy voice, quietly shut
Their winnowing wings, to mark old wisdom put
Young doubt to silence now, and now to praise
Of meek philosophy, which so could raise
The animal man from earth, and make him like a god.

And but for thee, oh Sleep, I perhaps had rode
With fine-eyed Fancy in her winged car,—
Travelling high and high, until that star,
Clearest and first-discerned, had seemed as far
And dim-discernible as heaven from earth;
And so had heard the immortals, in their mirth,
Singing, with silvery voices, unto lyres
Strung by the hymner, Praise, with golden wires
Perfect in harmony. And next had seen
Beings unknown, of motion, shape, and mien,
Too heavenly-graceful ever to have been
Inhabiters of earth:—had walked with them
The one vast road to heaven,—road with rich gem,
And gold, and silver powdered, which bright dust,
Stirred by their pilgrim-feet, and seen o'nights
By northern shepherds, from their bleak-aired heights,
(Who to the purblind eyes of terror trust,
And not to reason,) are deemed beacon-lights,
That warn of reckless war and wrecking ruin;
Of darkest deeds of blood, and every fearful doing.

Had seen such wonders as would make Romance
Blush for her poor inventions, and enhance
Her little love for Truth; had winged where stand
Those seven sister-virgins, each in hand
Holding a silver lamp of radiant shine,
Lustrous with light poured from the lamps divine.

Then quick descending, ere the glib tongue of Time
Might tell a moment,—falling like stars that climb
Proudly, ambitiously, and so are hurled
Back on their station, nearer this far world—
Or that archangel, who the Powerful One
Braved to his front, but mounting towards his throne
With aweless daring, stumbled, and headlong fell,
Prince never more in heaven, though king in hell;
Hurtling as rapidly through the rending air,—
But with no thoughts like his of anger or despair.

So I had lit in a new paradise,
That had found gazing for a myriad eyes;
Had over-wandered fields with floweryness
Breathing deliciously to sweet excess;
Had roamed green banks, which nightly Fays emboss
With velvet cushions of the golden moss,
By lakes which pay no tribute to the sea,
Nor take from it, yet keep unwastedly;

Had laid me down on flowers by sudden fountains;
Had leapt deep waterfalls, and clambered mountains
Accessless but to thought;—mountains, whose name
Is poetry, long known and loved of Fame,
That dotard fond;—mountains that stoop
Like giants old, and seem as they would swoop
From their high seats down on the quaking dell,
And fall like Israel's priest, when those should prop him fell.

FAIRY REVELS.

[_]

From an unpublished Poem entitled “A Day in Winter.”

She [Fancy] shews me swarded spots which have sustained
The velvety and leaf-light feet of fairies,
Dancing what time the night-bird most complained;
Where their Queen sat, to view their mad vagaries,
Pillowed between two globes of that white down
Which sometime turbaned the bald, monkish crown
Of Dandelion old, when youth had fled,
And all the pride of his gold-tressed head;
What nodding bell-flower was her canopy;
Where, cushioned on green moss, the King sat by;
Which of her maidens won the amorous gaze
And following of his eye, as through the maze
Of the wide dance she swam; which comely youth
Of his brave knights won the Queen's heart from truth

And her false-hearted love and lord; and where
The jealous Oberon slew, in sight of her
And his dumb trembling court, that paramour;
And where her tears fell down, a dew-like shower,
From her blue eyes, sprang the sweet violet flower.

What numerous mischiefs Puck, that arch elf, did;
How, to escape their punishment, he hid
Deep in a bud's dark nook; and how he slid
Into a brimming well of dew, and wou'd
Have drowned, but swift Ethereon, who stood
Within his call, threw in the stoutest string
Of gossamer he could, which he did cling
Safely to, and was outdrawn; what loud laughter
Followed the telling of his mad pranks after;
When the king heard them, how an acorn cup,
With blood of a choice grape filled freshly up,
Fell from his laughter-shaken hand upon a flower
White as the brow of Dian, from that hour
The Red Rose named. What errands Faïa went
That night upon: first, round the firmament,
Bringing to earth the spheres' sweet melodies,
For music to the Fay's festivities;
Then with what duteous haste, on finning pinions,
She ransacked covetous Neptune's rich dominions

For drinking pearls, searching his sparry cells
And coral grots, and all half-opened shells,
Till she had found the one which took her mind;
How she uprose from that deep sea of trouble
To its smooth surface safely, in a bubble
Made by her light breathing, though close pursued
By Triton and sleek Mermen in a multitude;
How in a dew-drop, blown to a balloon,
A voyaging she went around the moon;
And how it burst, and, like a shooting star,
Headlong she fell, and perpendicular;
Yet, 'mid a group of fairies on the ground
Lighted like snow, without or fear or wound;
Then half o'er earth, to gather glow-lights, twice;
Once to old Mab, to crave her presence; thrice
To Fairy land, on missions secret; then
To the Sun, to learn when he would rise again,
That they might have their revels timely done,
For Fairies love his queen's pale, shadowy light, or none.

In sooth, it was a curious spectacle, to see
Their coming to that spot marked out to be
The nightly stage of prankish revelry,—
A lone, deep dell, where none save their light feet
Could tread, or ever trode. There would they meet,
When vestal Cynthia turned her lamp's light gleam
To earth, and silvered o'er the silent stream;

With all that pomp, and pageantry, and show
Which blythe-heart fairies on their sports bestow.

And first, the fitful sound of herald horn
Upon the languid air came gently borne;
Anon, a many lights, small, bright, and twinkling,
Told of the coming of the Queen and King;
And shout, and chorus, and a band of shells,
And lyres by soft winds twanged, and pealing bells,
And glistening of fay arms and armour bright,
Poured on the ear, and gleamed upon the sight.
Came next, all bearing lights, a chosen troop
Of silent-stepping Fays; and then a group,
All sparkling of eye, in garb all glittering,
O'er the mossed turf came swimming, ring in ring,
With hearts as light as their small, feathery feet,
Which brushed, yet left unspilt, the dewy sweat
That hung like jewels on the flowers' sweet heads,
Sunk down in slumber on their pleasant beds.
As they swept by, with antic-tripping tread,
Her rose-leaves Autumn showered on each head,
And with her dew their tresses diamonded.
Then came a train of fairy virgin-maids;
Each held a rushy torch, through murky shades
Of wood and forest meant to guide their way,
And lend discernment of their favourite Fay:

They might have trusted to their eyes' young fires,
They were so warm and radiantly bright,
And burnt with flames fiercer than fierce desire's;
But from the glow-worm they had ta'en that light
Which made a day for them in night's despite.

Then came a harnessed yoke of mice, so white
Snow were not fair beside them; richly bedight
With glistening gems, their harness was the skin
Of a springe-strangled mole; the traces,
Like silvery hairs of age, long, fine, and bright,
And knitted strong though delicately thin,
By handy Puck were gleaned from greenwood places.
Where that most careless weaver, Gossamer,
Had hung and left his skeins. Upon the back
Of jaded mouse an elfin perked, with spur
Plucked from the angry wasp, to goad and stir
Them to their duty; and many a smack
Of a far-reaching whip (it seemed to be
A leg of the long-spinner) minutely
Dropt down on their sleek sides. How may I tell
The beauties of their car! It was a shell,
Tribute of Oberon to his Queen, when she
Was wooed by him, then young in her virginity,
And was of orient pearl; and all about it
Was spread a prism of blent hues; without it,

Was well ensculptured many a quaint device;
The rim was studded round with gems of price:
Placed on the backs of grasshoppers, the springs
Were their lithe limbs; the wheels were those rare rings
Old Venice' bridegroom weds the sea withal;
The spokes were golden pins, bright, short, and small,
Pulled from the robes of maids who in their beds
Dreamt wantonly; and o'er their crowned heads,
For canopy, a cowslip drooping hung,
And scattered fragrance round them as it swung.
Such was their state. But how may I acquaint ye
Of Oberon's feast, made up of strange, yet dainty
Dishes, of numberless small niceties!
The round and honeyed thighs of Hyblæn bees,
Strung on white cricket-bones, by twos and threes,
And slightly broiled by slow marsh-fires, were served
First to his craving kingship: had he starved
Much as some subjects do, he had not ate
More hungrily. Next he devoured three sweet,
Delicious bags that ne'er had been to hive,—
Rich interceptions, by the twilight Fays
Forced from benighted bees, who hoped to thrive
By their late-toiling and too-covetous ways;
And next the unctuous and honeyed tips
Of small flies' feeders; with the gum that drips

From the pregnant belly of the ripening plum;
And, for his bread, a sacramental crumb
That fell from holy-minded maiden's lips,
At the Virgin's altar kneeling awfully,
Praying, though mute, with upward heart and eye.
These other dainties came by fits and starts:
Limbs of grasshoppers, and the sweet red hearts
Of merry crickets; the rich, glutinous eyes
Of bats and birds, beetles and butterflies;
The unctuous feeders of sleek, slimy snails,
Gathered from bushy brakes, and verdant pales;
A miller-moth, in poet's taper singed;
The mole's small eyes, by the fay-farmers springed;
With twice-stolen eggs, first by a school-boy brood,
Then stolen from them, caught sleeping in a wood;
With bees' sweet thighs in their own honey stewed,
And served in delicate shells, a dainty jelly,
Made Puck, delighted, smooth his paunchy belly,
And longing smack his lickerish lips. And next
On fire-flies' hearts he feasted, but seemed vext
The dish was scant, and elfin-cooks were blamed;
But they well knew his anger might be tamed,
And quick as flies a spark, to cool his ire,
They serve the plumpy haunch of barn-mouse, roasted
By the few sparks of routed gipsy's fire;
With pinched bits of bread, from burning ovens

Pilfered by Puck, to punish slumberous slovens;
These in the moon-rays parched and brownly toasted,
Gave crisp employment to his pugging teeth,
And left him but short time for talk or breath.

Some fifty lordly Fays, pamper'd with pride,
And for the common crowd too dignified,
Kept all aloof; and by a mushroom canopied,
Sat in a circle to a plenteous feast
Of dainties plunder'd from an emmet's nest,
His store of winter-food: you might have thought
These stolen cates were prodigally bought,
They ate them with such pomp and stately mirth—
Much like some larger lords who batten on this earth.

Small things have their great vices; and Oberon,
Who was nice-virtuous when vice was gone,
Had his large share, though but a little elf.
He ruled his subjects better than himself,
And having reigned ten centuries, now grew old;
And with hot dalliance had waxen cold;
So, to excite his blood, and fierce inflame
Love's grosser passion, dormant long and tame,
Quaffs two fine dusts of the Iberian fly,
Pinch'd by rogue Puck from out his living thigh,
Which cause his Fayship's blood run amorously.

Of this he pours his paramour to drink,
With wanton smiles, and many a wicked wink,
And lecherous twinkle of his eyes, whose fire
Is a small flame lit up by vast desire.—
What nice Titania's drink?—a ruby drop
Of sacred wine from a golden altar-cup
Spilled by a sinner's trembling hand, at start
Of conscience; and the death-tear of a heart
That broke in penitence, a Magdalene's;
With drained drops from Venus' milky bosom,
As her last little Love she slowly weans;
The first dew-drops shed by a fresh, sweet blossom,
Bowing to white-foot May; the waking-wept
Tears of the rose, whom the traveller bee kept
Startling from sleep with his rude clamorous horn,
Which blew for entrance to her bower, ere morn,
The early morn, was scarcely up. And these,
Which freshen, but not madden, and leave no lees,
Were for her after-drink: these kept her cool,
After the night was spent, wisely the day to rule.

Dancing they had, and music rich and rare,
And instruments beautiful as eye might see:
A lyre was one, strung with the golden hair
Of Sappho, drowned in the Lesbian sea;

And drums, of halved shells and leathery wing
Of batoutstretched, kept up a thundering;
And there were pipes of reeds, small and minute;
And the shrill shrieking of a reedy flute;
And many sounds, unsweet alone, which blent,
Made a wild music, that gave sweet content
To ears and hearts tuned only to mad merriment.

Much mirth there was, which waggish Puck excited,
Playing such pranks as the gay fays delighted:
Now on a high-hung thread of gossamer
He runs along, and springs, and featly dances;
And now on back of springy grasshopper
He rides the fairy ring, and leaps and prances,
And now is thrown, and now remounts again,
'Till laughter shakes his wagship's sides to pain. [OMITTED]

So came they forth that night, such was their court,
Their feasts and dances, and light whim and sport,
Which they untired maintained; and homeward went,
Waking the welkin with their shouts of merriment.

1817.

SONG.

[My cot should stand in silence' dale]

My cot should stand in silence' dale;
Its windows, brightening with the East,
Should hear the wakeful Nightingale,
When every voice but her's doth rest;
And there should be, to hear it too,
A maid all tenderness and truth,
With eyes that gleam like moonlit dew,
And yet can sometimes pale with ruth.

My cot should have a greenwood bower,
With fruit and flower, for bird and bee,
To breathe all sweets in dewy hour,
And balm Love's breath refreshfully;
And there my Mary's harp should ring
Sweet tones that make the pulses thrill,
The heart unconsciously to sing,
And as unconsciously to still.

A little lake, nor loud nor deep,
Should from my door to distance spread,
Where I might hear the light fish leap,
Or see them nestle in their bed;
And it should sleep between two hills,
Where no loud-howling storms come near,
Calm as the heart when laughter stills,
And bright as joy's delicious tear.

And there my white-sailed shallop-boat,
Should lie in golden-sanded cove,
Or on the silver wide wave float,
Freighted by Beauty and glad Love:
And thus might we love, sing, and play,
And let the months like minutes wing;
And life be all a summer's day,
And death a dark, but dreadless thing.

1821.

SONG.

[I saw her but a lover's hour]

I saw her but a lover's hour,
That beauty without beauty's pride,
As humble as the wayside flower
That blushing droops when fondly eyed:—
Her hair was like the golden rays
That fall on mountain-heads of snow;
And angels might with wonder gaze
Upon the whiteness of her brow.

Her eyes were like twin violets,
The violets of the sunny south,
Which dewy morn delighted wets,
And kisses with delicious mouth.
Her cheek was pale as the wan Moon,
The young moon of the virgin year,
Whenas her night is past its noon,
And the warm-kissing sun is near.

Her closed mouth was like a bud
Full of the balmy breath of May;
Her voice was like a summer flood
That noiseless steals its gentle way;
Its sound on memory's ear will start
Like to a sweet, forgotten tune,
Whose echoes live within a heart
That what it loves forgets not soon.

SONNET. SPRING.

Flower-shedding Spring, with a good servant's haste,
Is hurrying about, to make the many ways
That Summer will pass through, now wild and waste,
Pleasant as high-roads on blythe holidays;
The Bees, impatient of their honey toil,
Hover and hum about the unbudded flowers;
(O right-industrious they who whilst they moil
Rejoice, which Idlesse does not in his weedy bower!)
Millions of golden flowers yellow the hills,
That look and shine like gathered heaps of gold;
And birds, and buds, and leaves—river and rills—
Valley and heath, and all things I behold,
Breathe out their voices with a soft, sweet might,
Instructing my dumb heart in their unfeigned delight.

1816.

SONNET. NATURE.

Nature hath sounds and sights should never tire!
Such is the hum of honey-sated bee;
The various voice of birds, who hireless quire
Their mellow songs to the young seasons three;
The stir of waters vast,—whether they be
Of ocean, lake, or river; the fields' attire;
The rustling corn ripening on hill and lea;
The sun enthroned upon his car of fire;
The golden sunlight on the silver sea;
The day that dies like widow on the pyre
Where burns her bright-haired lord; the sweet respire
Of incense-wafting flowers; the moon, when she
Walks pale and lonely as sad Niobë;
With all God formed for man, but man will not admire.

SONNET. MORNING.

The silver twilight star in heaven is set,
Of all his light-eyed brethren lingering last;
The glad lark flutters his grey winglets, wet
And chill with mist and dew, and hurries fast,
Before his fellows stir, up to the dome
Which spanneth the green earth, now fresh and bright
As beauty newly waked; the bird of night,
Whom poets and sad lovers love, wings home,
Breaking abrupt her song with sudden-breaking day;
Roused by the tread of dewy-footed dawn,
Sleep, like a startled bee, flies fast away;
And now the sun's sweet bride, the sinless morn,
Comes blushing from his bed, amid the quiring
Of choral birds, and odorous flowers' respiring.

1817.