And at all times to hear are drowsy tones Of dizzy flies, and humming drones, With sudden flap of pigeon wings in the sky, Or the wild cry Of thirsty rooks, that scour ascare The distant blue, to watering as they fare With creaking pinions, or—on business bent, If aught their ancient polity displease,— Come gathering to their colony, and there Settling in ragged parliament, Some stormy council hold in the high trees.
So sweet love seemed that April morn, When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change.
But I can tell—let truth be told— That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is nought to see, So delicate his motions be.
And in the end ’twill come to pass Quite to forget what once he was, Nor even in fancy to recall The pleasure that was all in all.
His little spring, that sweet we found, So deep in summer floods is drowned, I wonder, bathed in joy complete, How love so young could be so sweet.
What voice of gladness, hark! In heaven is ringing? From the sad fields the lark Is upward winging.
High through the mournful mist that blots our day Their songs betray them soaring in the grey. See them! Nay, they In sunlight swim; above the furthest stain Of cloud attain; their hearts in music rain Upon the plain.
Sweet birds, far out of sight Your songs of pleasure Dome us with joy as bright As heaven’s best azure.
See, whirling snow sprinkles the starvèd fields, The birds have stayed to sing; No covert yet their fairy harbour yields. When cometh Spring? Ah! in their tiny throats what songs unborn Are quenched each morn.
The lenten lilies, through the frost that push, Their yellow heads withhold: The woodland willow stands a lonely bush Of nebulous gold; There the Spring-goddess cowers in faint attire Of frightened fire.
In this May-month, by grace of heaven, things shoot apace. The waiting multitude of fair boughs in the wood, How few days have arrayed their beauty in green shade
What have I seen or heard? it was the yellow bird Sang in the tree: he flew a flame against the blue; Upward he flashed. Again, hark! ’tis his heavenly strain.
Another! Hush! Behold, many, like boats of gold, From waving branch to branch their airy bodies launch. What music is like this, where each note is a kiss?