Love, meet me in the green glen,
Beside the tall elm tree,
Where the sweet briar smells so sweet agen;
There come with me,
Meet me in the green glen.
Meet me at the sunset
Down in the green glen,
Where we've often met
By hawthorn tree and foxes' den,
Meet me in the green glen.
Meet me in the green glen,
By sweet briar bushes there;
Meet me by your own sen,
Where the wild thyme blossoms fair.
Meet me in the green glen.
Meet me by the sweet briar,
The thistle-down's flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red hot.
The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and, often an intruding guest,
I watched her secret toils from day to day--
How true she warped the moss, to form a nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay;
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue;
And there I witnessed in the sunny hours
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.
Welcome, red and roundy sun,
Dropping lowly in the west;
Now my hard day's work is done,
I'm as happy as the best.
Joyful are the thoughts of home,
Now I'm ready for my chair,
So, till morrow-morning's come,
Bill and mittens, lie ye there!
Though to leave your pretty song,
Little birds, it gives me pain,
Yet to-morrow is not long,
Then I'm with you all again.
If I stop, and stand about,
Well I know how things will be,
Judy will be looking out
Every now-and-then for me.
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
I Got me flowers to straw Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.
The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume,
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
A something in a summer's Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.
A something in a summer's noon --
A depth -- an Azure -- a perfume --
Transcending ecstasy.
And still within a summer's night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see --
Then veil my too inspecting face
Lets such a subtle -- shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me --
The wizard fingers never rest --
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it narrow bed --
Still rears the East her amber Flag --
My Faith is larger than the Hills --
So when the Hills decay --
My Faith must take the Purple Wheel
To show the Sun the way --
'Tis first He steps upon the Vane --
And then -- upon the Hill --
And then abroad the World He go
To do His Golden Will --
And if His Yellow feet should miss --
The Bird would not arise --
The Flowers would slumber on their Stems --
No Bells have Paradise --
How dare I, therefore, stint a faith
On which so vast depends --
Lest Firmament should fail for me --
The Rivet in the Bands
On this long storm the Rainbow rose --
On this late Morn -- the Sun --
The clouds -- like listless Elephants --
Horizons -- straggled down --
The Birds rose smiling, in their nests --
The gales -- indeed -- were done --
Alas, how heedless were the eyes --
On whom the summer shone!
The quiet nonchalance of death --
No Daybreak -- can bestir --
The slow -- Archangel's syllables
Must awaken her!
As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,
And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved --
So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.
Dying at my music!
Bubble! Bubble!
Hold me till the Octave's run!
Quick! Burst the Windows!
Ritardando!
Phials left, and the Sun!
Nature assigns the Sun --
That -- is Astronomy --
Nature cannot enact a Friend --
That -- is Astrology.