TO A WATERFOWL.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, fairy place,

That is fit home for thee!

W. Wordsworth.

TO A WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.

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TO A WATERFOWL.

All day thy wings have fanned

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

W. C. Bryant.

THE STARLINGS.

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THE STARLINGS.

EARLY in springtime, on raw and windy mornings,

Beneath the freezing house-eaves I heard the starlings ́ sing

“Ah dreary March month, is this then a time for building wearily?

Sad, sad, to think that the year is but begun!”

Late in the autumn, on still and cloudless evenings, Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing— "Ah that sweet March month when we and our mates were courting merrily;

Sad, sad, to think that the year is all but done!”

C. Kingsley.

ITYLUS.

SWALLOW, my sister, O sister swallow,
How can thine heart be full of the spring?
A thousand summers are over and dead.
What hast thou found in the spring to follow?
What hast thou found in thy heart to sing?

What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?

O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,
Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,

The soft south whither thine heart is set?

Shall not the grief of the old time follow?
Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?
Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?

Modern Poets.

10

Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,
Thy way is long to the sun and the south;
But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire,
Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,
From tawny body and sweet small mouth,
Feed the heart of the night with fire.

I, the nightingale, all spring through,
O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,
All spring through till the spring be done,
Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,
Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,
Take flight and follow and find the sun.

Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,

Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,
How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?

For where thou fliest I shall not follow,
Till life forget and death remember,
Till thou remember and I forget,

Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,
I know not how thou hast heart to sing,
Hast thou the heart? Is it all past over?
Thy lord the summer is good to follow,
And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:
But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover!

O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,

My heart in me is a molten ember,

And over my head the waves have met.

But thou would'st tarry or I would follow,
Could I forget or thou remember,

Couldst thou remember and I forget.

ITYLUS.

O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,
The heart's division divideth us.

Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;
But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow
To the place of the slaying of Itylus,
The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.

O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,
I pray thee sing not a little space.

Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?
The woven web that was plain to follow,
The small slain body, the flower-like face,
Can I remember if thou forget?

O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!

The hands that cling and the feet that follow,
The voice of the child's blood crying yet
Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget.

A, C, Swinburne.

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