A Birthday

Y heart is like a singing bird

M

William Blake.

Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
(B 838)

385

Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Christina Rossetti.

Hidden Joys

LEASURES lie thickest where no pleasures

seem:

There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground

But holds some joy, of silence, or of sound, Some sprite begotten of a summer dream. The very meanest things are made supreme With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand But moves a bright and million-peopled land, And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things, And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh, Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings, Delight from many a nameless covert sly Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings.

R

S. L. Blanchard.

The Land of Faëry

IGHT well I wot, most mighty Sovereign,
That all this famous antique history

Of some the abundance of an idle brain
Will judged be, and painted forgery,
Rather than matter of just memory;

Since none that breatheth living air doth know
Where is that happy land of Faëry

Which I so much do vaunt, yet nowhere show,
But vouch antiquities, which nobody can know.

But let that man with better sense advise
That of the world least part to us is read;
And daily how through hardy enterprise
Many great regions are discovered
Which to late age were never mentioned.
Who ever heard of th' Indian Peru?
Or who in venturous vessel measured
The Amazon huge river, now found true?
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did ever view?

Yet all these were when no man did them know,
Yea, have from wisest ages hidden been;
And later times things more unknown shall show.
Why then should witless man so much misween
That nothing is but that which he hath seen?
What if within the moon's fair shining sphere,
What if in every other star unseen,

Of other worlds he happily should hear?

He wonder would much more; yet such to some appear.

Spenser.

The Consolations of Poetry

S

HE doth for my comfort stay,

And keeps many cares away.
Though I miss the flow'ry fields,

With those sweets the springtide yields,
Though I may not see those groves,

Where the shepherds chant their loves,
And the lasses more excel

Than the sweet-voiced Philomel,

Though of all those pleasures past

Nothing now remains at last,
But Remembrance, poor relief,

That more makes than mends my grief;
She's my mind's companion still,
Maugre Envy's evil will;

(Whence she should be driven too,
Were't in mortal's power to do).

She doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
To be pleasing ornaments.
In my former days of bliss,
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height,
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustlëing;
By a daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.

Poesy, thou sweet'st content
That e'er heav'n to mortals lent,
Though they as a trifle leave thee

Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee,

Though thou be to them a scorn

That to nought but earth are born,

Let my life no longer be

Than I am in love with thee.

Though our wise ones call thee madness,

Let me never taste of gladness

If I love not thy mad'st fits

More than all their greatest wits.

And though some, too, seeming holy
Do account thy raptures folly,

Thou dost teach me to contemn

What makes knaves and fools of them.

To Nature

George Wither.

T may indeed be phantasy when I

Essay to draw from all created things

Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;

And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie

Lessons of love and earnest piety.

So let it be; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, to me it brings

Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.

So will I build my altar in the fields,

And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,

And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields,
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,

Thee, only God: and Thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

Coleridge.