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POEMS OF THE FANCY.

A MORNING EXERCISE. FANCY, who leads the pastimes of the glad, Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw; Sending sad shadows after things not sad, Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe; Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry Becomes an echo of man's misery.

Blithe ravens croak of death; and when the owl Tries his two voices for a favourite strainTu-hit-Tu-whoo! the unsuspecting fowl Forebodes mishap, or seems but to complain : Fancy, intent to harass and annoy, Can thus pervert the evidence of joy.

Through border wilds where naked Indians stray, Myriads of notes attest her subtle skill;

A feathered task-master cries, "WORK AWAY!"
And, in thy iteration," WHIP POOR WILL,"*
Is heard the spirit of a toil-worn slave,
Lashed out of life, not quiet in the grave!

What wonder? at her bidding ancient lays Steeped in dire griefs the voice of Philomel; And that fleet messenger of summer days, The swallow, twittered subject to like spell ; But ne'er could Fancy bend the buoyant lark To melancholy service-hark! O hark!

The daisy sleeps upon the dewy lawn, Not lifting yet the head that evening bowed; Bat He is risen, a later star of dawn, Glittering and twinkling near yon rosy cloud; Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark; The happiest bird that sprang out of the ark!

Hail, blest above all kinds!— Supremely skilled Restless with fixed to balance, high with low, Thou leav'st the halcyon free her hopes to build On such forbearance as the deep may show; Perpetual flight, unchecked by earthly ties, Leavest to the wandering Bird of Paradise.

To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler! - that love-prompted strain, ("Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy spring.

Faithful, though swift as lightning, the meek dove; Yet more hath nature reconciled in thee; So constant with thy downward eye of love, Yet, in aerial singleness, so free; So humble, yet so ready to rejoice

power of wing and never-wearied voice!

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How would it please old ocean to partake, With sailors longing for a breeze in vain, The harmony thy notes most gladly make Where earth resembles most his own domain ! Urania's self might welcome with pleased ear These matins mounting towards her native sphere. Chanter by heaven attracted, whom no bars To day-light known deter from that pursuit, 'Tis well that some sage instinct, when the stars Come forth at evening, keeps thee still and mute; For not an eyelid could to sleep incline Wert thou among them, singing as they shine!

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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 greetest the Traveller in the lane; If welcome thou countest it gain;

Thou art not daunted,

Nor carest 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 livest 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 needs 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;

Come 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 whence, Nor whither going.

Child of the year! that round dost run
Thy course bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the days begun

As morning Leveret,

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Dear shalt thou 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 hail-stones pattered round.
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,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hail-stones 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 Good-fellow 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 birds and flowers 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

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

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 Flowers,
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.

My dazzled sight the Bird deceives,
A Brother of the dancing Leaves;

Then flits, and from the Cottage eaves

Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain

The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes.

But, exiled from Australian Bowers,
And singleness her lot,

She trills her song with tutored powers,

Or mocks each casual note.

No more of pity for regrets

With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,
Or spite, if cause be given;
Arch, volatile, a sportive Bird
By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard,
And pleased to be admired!

II.

This moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry,
Harbours a self-contented Wren,
Not shunning man's abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken.

Strange places, coverts unendeared
She never tried; the very nest

In which this Child of Spring was reared,
Is warmed, thro' winter, by her feathery breast.

To the bleak winds she sometimes gives

A slender unexpected strain;

That tells the Hermitess still lives,

Though she appear not, and be sought in vain.

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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.

*Common Pilewort.

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
"T was 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 her 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.

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

That they are all 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 show thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane. there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,

But 't is 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,
Ill-requited upon earth;
Herald of a mighty band,
Of a joyous train ensuing,
Serving at my heart's command,
Tasks that are no tasks renewing,
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 rising sun he painted,
Took the fancy from a glance
At thy glittering countenance.
Soon as gentle breezes bring
News of winter's vanishing,
And the children build their bowers,
Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould
All about with full-blown flowers,
Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold!
With the proudest thou art there,
Mantling in the tiny square.

Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure,
Sighed to think, I read a book
Only read, perhaps, by me;
Yet I long could overlook
Thy bright coronet and Thee,
And thy arch and wily ways,
And thy store of other praise.

Blithe of heart from week to week
Thou dost play at hide-and-seek;
While the patient primrose sits
Like a Beggar in the cold,
Thou, a Flower of wiser wits,
Slip'st into thy sheltering hold;
Liveliest of the vernal train
When ye all are out again.

Drawn by what peculiar spell,

By what charm of sight or smell,
Does the dim-eyed curious Bee,
Labouring for her waxen cells,
Fondly settle upon Thee,

Prized above all buds and bells
Opening daily at thy side,
By the season multiplied?
Thou art not beyond the moon,
But a thing "beneath our shoon:"
Let the bold Discoverer thrid
In his bark the polar sea;
Rear who will a pyramid;
Praise it is enough for me,
If there be but three or four
Who will love my little Flower.

THE WATERFALL AND THE EGLANTINE "BEGONE, thou fond presumptuous Elf," Exclaimed an angry Voice,

"Nor dare to trust thy foolish self Between me and my choice."

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