The Cypress Wreath. O, LADY, twine no wreath for me, Let dimpled Mirth his temples twine Let merry England proudly rear Strike the wild harp, while maids prepare Yes! twine for me the cypress bough; Ruth. SHE stood breast high amid the corn, SCOTT. In the midst of brown was born, Like red poppies grown with corn. Round her eyes her tresses fell, And her hat, with shady brim, Sure, I said, heaven did not mean, Share my harvest and my home. To a 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. THOMAS HOOD. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest 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 unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air 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, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 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, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. |