I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
          While in a grove I sate reclined,
          In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
          Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

          To her fair works did Nature link
          The human soul that through me ran;
          And much it grieved my heart to think
          What man has made of man.

          Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
          The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
          And 'tis my faith that every flower
          Enjoys the air it breathes.

          The birds around me hopped and played,
          Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
          But the least motion which they made
          It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

          The budding twigs spread out their fan,
          To catch the breezy air;
          And I must think, do all I can,
          That there was pleasure there.

          If this belief from heaven be sent,
          If such be Nature's holy plan,
          Have I not reason to lament
          What man has made of man?

                                            - William Wordsworth

 

            THE cock is crowing,
            The stream is flowing,
            The small birds twitter,
            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!

            Like an army defeated
            The snow hath retreated,
            And now doth fare ill
            On the top of the bare hill;
          The plowboy is whooping- anon-anon:
            There's joy in the mountains;
            There's life in the fountains;
            Small clouds are sailing,
            Blue sky prevailing;
          The rain is over and gone!

                                              - William Wordsworth

 

          COME to the river-bank with me;
          For there are plumed ferns of crescent green,
          And in the wine-dark pools are seen
          The crimson-spotted trout.
          Hush! hush! move through the brake most silently,
          Vex with no loud unhallow'd shout
          The holy secrecy of this sweet glade,
          And you shall see
          The dipper rush with sudden flash, and fade
          Into the woodland screen;
          Nor shall you by your presence make afraid
          The kingfisher, who looks down dreamily
          At his own shadow gorgeously array'd.

                                            -Sir Edmund William Gosse

 

          I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
                 From the seas and the streams;
          I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
                 In their noonday dreams.
          From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
                 The sweet buds every one,
          When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
                 As she dances about the sun.
          I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
                 And whiten the green plains under,
          And then again I dissolve it in rain,
                 And laugh as I pass in thunder.

          I sift the snow on the mountains below,
                 And their great pines groan aghast;
          And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
                 While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
          Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
                 Lightning, my pilot, sits;
          In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
                 It struggles and howls at fits;

          Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
                 This pilot is guiding me,
          Lured by the love of the genii that move
                 In the depths of the purple sea;
          Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
                 Over the lakes and the plains,
          Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
                 The Spirit he loves remains;
          And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
                 Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

          The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
                 And his burning plumes outspread,
          Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
                 When the morning star shines dead;
          As on the jag of a mountain crag,
                 Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
          An eagle alit one moment may sit
                 In the light of its golden wings.
          And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
                 Its ardors of rest and of love,

          And the crimson pall of eve may fall
                 From the depth of Heaven above,
          With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
                 As still as a brooding dove.
          That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
                 Whom mortals call the Moon,
          Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
                 By the midnight breezes strewn;
          And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
                 Which only the angels hear,
          May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
                 The stars peep behind her and peer;
          And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
                 Like a swarm of golden bees,
          When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
                 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
          Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
                 Are each paved with the moon and these.

          I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
                 And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
          The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
                 When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
          From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
                 Over a torrent sea,
          Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
                 The mountains its columns be.
          The triumphal arch through which I march
                 With hurricane, fire, and snow,
          When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
                 Is the million-colored bow;
          The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
                 While the moist Earth was laughing below.

          I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
                 And the nursling of the Sky;
          I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
                 I change, but I cannot die.
          For after the rain when with never a stain
                 The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
          And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
                 Build up the blue dome of air,
          I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
                 And out of the caverns of rain,
          Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
                 I arise and unbuild it again.

                                                 - Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

          FLOWER in the crannied wall,
          I pluck you out of the crannies,
          I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
          Little flower--but if I could understand
          What you are, root and all, all in all,
          I should know what God and man is.

                                          - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

          THE poetry of earth is never dead:
               When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
               And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
          From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
          That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
               In summer luxury,--he has never done
               With his delights; for when tired out with fun
          He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
          The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
               On a lone winter evening, when the frost
               Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
          The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
               And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
               The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. (1816)

                                                                         - John Keats