Garden Walks with the Poets

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Riker, Chorne & Company, 1854
 

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Page 145 - Go, lovely rose ! Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young, And shuns to have her graces spied. That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired : Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die ! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee, — How...
Page 126 - And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, •An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers...
Page 165 - Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial, loved return ! For when thy folding star — arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge. And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still, The pensive pleasures sweet Prepare thy shadowy car, Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Or find some ruin...
Page 39 - Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness: The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade.
Page 331 - All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair — The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Page 126 - The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world and she to her nest,— In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
Page 18 - SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. Stars they are, wherein we read our history, As astrologers and seers of eld ; Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Like the burning stars, which they beheld.
Page 255 - A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, And closed them beneath the kisses of night.
Page 235 - I have naught that is fair?" saith he; "Have naught but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again." He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay...
Page 99 - WHEN I survey the bright Celestial sphere; So rich with jewels hung, that night Doth like an Ethiop bride appear: My soul her wings doth spread And heaven-ward flies, The Almighty's mysteries to read In the large volumes of the skies. For the bright firmament Shoots forth no flame So silent, but is eloquent In speaking the Creator's name.

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