POEMS OF THE FANCY.

TO THE DAISY.

IN youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill, in discontent

Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,-
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake
Of thee, sweet Daisy !

When soothed a while by milder airs,
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few grey hairs;
Spring cannot shun thee;

Whole Summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
If welcomed once thou count'st it gain;
Thou art not daunted,

Nor car'st if thou be set at naught:

And oft alone in nooks remote

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Be violets in their secret mews

The flowers the wanton zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie

Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He need but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,

And one chance look to thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life, our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise, alert and gay,

Then, cheerful flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy, genial influence,

Coming one knows not how, nor whenoc,
Nor whither going.

Child of the year! that round dost run

Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun
As morning leveret,

Thy long-lost praise* thou shalt regain;
Dear thou shalt be to future men

As in old time;-thou not in vain,
Art Nature's favourite.

A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound
Then-all at once the air was still,

And showers of hailstores pattered round.

See, in Chaucer and the elder poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.

Where leafless oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove

Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
You could not lay a hair between:
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hailstones drop,
The withered leaves all skip and hop,
There's not a breeze-no breath of air-
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Goodfellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.

THE GREEN LINNET.

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:

Hail to thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion,

Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May,

And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and dowers
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;

A life, a presence like the air,

Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Upon yon tuft of hazel trees,

That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,

Yet seeming still to hover;

There where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

While thus before my eyes he gleams,
A brother of the leaves he seems;
When in a moment forth he teems
His little song in gushes:
As if it pleased him to disdain
And mock the form which he did feign,
While he was dancing with the train
Of leaves among the bushes.

TO THE SMALL CELANDINE.*

PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises
Long as there's a sun that sets
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,

They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.

Eyes of some men travel far

For the finding of a star;

Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!

I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little flower!-I'll make a stir
Like a great astronomer.

Modest, yet withal an elf

Bold, and lavish of thyself;

Since we needs must first have met

I have seen thee, high and low,

Thirty years or more, and yet
"Twas a face I did not know;
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.

Ere a leaf is on a bush.

In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about it's nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal ;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none,
* Common pilewort.

Poets, vain men in their mood!
Travel with the multitude;
Never heed them; I aver

That they all are wanton wooers;
But the thrifty cottager,
Who stirs little out of doors,
Joys to spy thee near her home;
Spring is coming, thou art come!

Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming spirit!
Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost shew thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane-there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,

But 'tis good enough for thee.
Ill befall the yellow flowers,
Children of the flaring hours!
Buttercups, that will be seen,
Whether we will see or no ;
Others, too, of lofty mien ;
They have done as worldlings do,
Taken praise that should be thine
Little, humble Celandine!

Prophet of delight and mirth,
Scorned and slighted upon earth!
Herald of a mighty band,
Of a joyous train ensuing,
Singing at my heart's command,
In the lanes my thoughts pursuing,
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise of what I love!

TO THE SAME FLOWER.

PLEASURES newly found are sweet When they lie about our feet: February last, my heart

First at sight of thee was glad;

All unheard of as thou art,

Thou must needs, I think, have had, Celandine and long ago,

Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,
Who the first with pointed rays,
(Workmen worthy to be sainted)
Set the sign-board in a blaze,
When the risen sun he painted,
Took the fancy from a glance
At thy glittering countenance.