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ligence. Let us never pass a bee-hive with indifference, and without reflection. Let us at least admire them; and that admiration may lead us to sublime thoughts. If we wish to meditate on our Creator, we shall find him here: this interesting spectacle may lead us to him; and cause us to adore his wisdom, power, and goodness, in the production of these little creatures."- Sturm.

THOU wert out betimes, thou busy, busy bee!

As abroad I took my early way,
Before the cow from her resting-place
Had risen up, and left her trace

On the meadow, with dew so gray,
Saw I thee, thou busy, busy bee.

Thou wert working late, thou busy, busy bee!
After the fall of the cistus flower,

When the primrose of evening was ready to burst,
I heard thee last, as I saw thee first;
In the silence of the evening hour,
Heard I thee, thou busy, busy bee.
Thou art a miser, thou busy, busy bee!
Late and early at employ;

Still on thy golden stores intent,

Thy summer in keeping and hoarding is spent,
What thy winter will never enjoy;

Wise lesson this for me, thou busy, busy bee.
Little dost thou think, thou busy, busy bee,
What is the end of thy toil.

When the latest flowers of the ivy are gone,
And all thy work for the year is done,

Thy master comes for the spoil;
Woe then for thee, thou busy, busy bee.

XIV. THE SKYLARK.

SOUTHEY.

"In early spring, the cheerful and exhilarating song of the skylark, fresh as the season, is the admiration of all. The bird rises on quivering wing, almost perpendicularly, singing as he flies, and gaining an elevation that is quite extraordinary; yet so powerful is his voice, that his wild joyous notes may be heard distinctly, when the pained eye can trace his course no longer. An ear well tuned to his song can even then determine by the notes, whether the bird is still ascending, remaining stationary, or on the descent. When at a considerable height, should a hawk appear in sight, or the well-known voice of his mate reach his ear, the wings are closed, and he drops to the earth with the rapidity of a stone. Occasionally the skylark sings when on the ground; but his most lively strains are poured forth during his flight; and even in confinement, this would-be tenant of the free air tramples his turf, and flutters his wings while singing, as if muscular motion were with him a necessary accompaniment to his music."- Yarrell.

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THE SKYLARK.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.'

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire!

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing, still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an embodied joy, whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven

In the broad daylight,

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art, we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower? 2

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view.

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach me, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine :

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chant,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt—

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Langour cannot be:

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

THE SKYLARK.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal strearn?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! 3

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

1." Shelley chose the measure of this poem with great felicity. The earnest hurry of the four short lines, followed by the long effusiveness of the Alexandrine, expresses the eagerness and continuity of the lark."-Leigh Hunt.

"Shelley's Skylark is perfectly buoyant with the very music it commemorates."-Tuckerman.

"The ode to the Skylark is the very warbling of the triumphant bird."Shaw.

2. "The music of the whole stanza is of the loveliest sweetness; of energy in the midst of softness; of dulcitude and variety. Not a sound of a vowel in the quatrain resembles that of another, except in the rhymes; while the very

227

SHELLEY.

sameness or repetition of the sounds in the Alexandrine intimates the revolvement and continuity of the music which the lady is playing, observe, for instance, (for nothing is too minute to dwell upon in such beauty), the contrast of the i and o in high-born'; the difference of the a in maiden' from that in palace' the strong opposition of maiden to tower (making the rhyme more vigorous in proportion to the general softness); then the new differences in soothing, love-laden, soul, and secret, all diverse from one another, and from the whole strain; and finally, the strain itself, winding up in the Alexandrine with a cadence of particular repetitions, which constitutes nevertheless a new difference on that account

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"IF ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true metal, and bear the stamp of heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as a part of himself, as trophies of his birth and power; the poor man's attachment to the tenement he holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or precious stones; he has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil, and scanty meals, that man has his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place."-Dickens.

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas autumn,-and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part:
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.

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