"MY HEART LEAPS UP." My heart leaps up when I behold Or let me die ! The Child is Father of the Man; TO A BUTTERFLY. STAY near me-do not take thy flight! A little longer stay in sight! Much converse do I find in Thee, Historian of my Infancy! Float near me; do not yet depart ! Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring'st, gay Creature as thou art ! A solemn image to my heart, My Father's Family! Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, Upon the prey :—with leaps and springs THE SPARROW'S NEST. BEHOLD, within the leafy shade, The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by My Father's house, in wet or dry Together visited. She looked at it as if she feared it ; She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And love, and thought, and joy. TO A BUTTERFLY. I'VE watched you now a full half-hour, I know not if you sleep or feed. What joy awaits you, when the breeze This plot of Orchard-ground is ours; Here rest your wings when they are weary; Come often to us, fear no wrong; Sit near us on the bough! We'll talk of sunshine and of song; And summer days, when we were young; THE REDBREAST AND BUTTERFLY. ART thou the Bird whom Man loves best, The Bird that comes about our doors And Russia far inland? The Bird, who by some name or other If the Butterfly knew but his friend, Under the branches of the tree : Can this be the Bird, to man so good, That, after their bewildering, Covered with leaves the little children, So painfully in the wood? 1 See Paradise Lost, Book XI., where Adam points out to Eve the ominous sign of the Eagle chasing "two Birds of gayest plume," and the gentle Hart and Hind pursued by their enemy. What ailed thee, Robin, that thou could'st pursue A beautiful Creature, That is gentle by nature? Beneath the summer sky From flower to flower let him fly; 'Tis all that he wishes to do. The cheerer Thou of our in-door sadness, In crimson as bright as thine own : WRITTEN IN MARCH, WHILE RESTING ON THE BRIDGE AT THE FOOT OF BROTHER'S WATER. THE cock is crowing, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest ; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one! |