Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems | Page 8

pity-pleading strains.?My Friend, and my Friend's Sister! we have learnt?A different lore: we may not thus profane?Nature's sweet voices always full of love?And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale?That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates?With fast thick warble his delicious notes,?As he were fearful, that an April night?Would be too short for him to utter forth?His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul?Of all its music! And I know a grove?Of large extent, hard by a castle huge?Which the great lord inhabits not: and so?This grove is wild with tangling underwood,?And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,?Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.?But never elsewhere in one place I knew?So many Nightingales: and far and near?In wood and thicket over the wide grove?They answer and provoke each other's songs--?With skirmish and capricious passagings,?And murmurs musical and swift jug jug?And one low piping sound more sweet than all--?Stirring the air with such an harmony,?That should you close your eyes, you might almost?Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,?Whose dewy leafits are but half disclos'd,?You may perchance behold them on the twigs,?Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistning, while many a glow-worm in the shade?Lights up her love-torch.
A most gentle maid?Who dwelleth in her hospitable home?Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,?(Even like a Lady vow'd and dedicate?To something more than nature in the grove)?Glides thro' the pathways; she knows all their notes,?That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment's space,?What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,?Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon?Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky?With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds?Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,?As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept?An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch'd?Many a Nightingale perch giddily?On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,?And to that motion tune his wanton song,?Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.
Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,?And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!?We have been loitering long and pleasantly,?And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!?Full fain it would delay me!--My dear Babe,?Who, capable of no articulate sound,?Mars all things with his imitative lisp,?How he would place his hand beside his ear,?His little hand, the small forefinger up,?And bid us listen! And I deem it wise?To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well?The evening star: and once when he awoke?In most distressful mood (some inward pain?Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream)?I hurried with him to our orchard plot,?And he beholds the moon, and hush'd at once?Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,?While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears?Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well--?It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven?Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up?Familiar with these songs, that with the night?He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,?Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.
[1] "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere?description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible.
THE FEMALE VAGRANT.
By Derwent's side my Father's cottage stood,?(The Woman thus her artless story told)?One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood?Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.?Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll'd:?With thoughtless joy I stretch'd along the shore?My father's nets, or watched, when from the fold?High o'er the cliffs I led my fleecy store,?A dizzy depth below! his boat and twinkling oar.
My father was a good and pious man,?An honest man by honest parents bred,?And I believe that, soon as I began?To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,?And in his hearing there my prayers I said:?And afterwards, by my good father taught,?I read, and loved the books in which I read;?For books in every neighbouring house I sought,?And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
Can I forget what charms did once adorn?My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,?And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn??The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;?The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;?My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;?The cowslip-gathering at May's dewy prime;?The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,?From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.
The staff I yet remember which upbore?The bending body of my active sire;?His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore?When the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;?When market-morning came, the neat attire?With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck'd;?My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,?When stranger passed, so