You have beheld how they With wicker arks did come The richer cowslips home. You 've heard them sweetly sing, And seen them in a round: Each virgin like a spring, With honeysuckles crown'd. 12 But now we see none here Life unthrifts, having spent 16 Your stock and needy grown, 20 1648. Robert Herrick. MY HEART 'S IN THE HIGHLANDS My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. 8 To the Cuckoo Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birth-place of valour, the country of worth; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below; Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods! My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not 1790. Robert Burns. TO THE CUCKOO HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove! Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, What time the daisy decks the green, Hast thou a star to guide thy path, Delightful visitant! with thee 16 8 1770. And hear the sound of music sweet The school-boy, wandering through the To pull the primose gay, Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, Another spring to hail. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year! O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! 12 16 20 24 28 John Logan. TO THE CUCKOO O BLITHE New-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice. O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, To the Cuckoo While I am lying on the grass Though babbling only to the Vale, Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same whom in my school-boy days Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou were still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen. And I can listen to thee yet; 12 16 20 24 28 O blessed bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home for Thee! 1804. 1807. 32 William Wordsworth. TO THE SKYLARK ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye [To the last point of vision, and beyond -'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond— All independent of the leafy Spring.] Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 12 1 |