To dress the jocund Spring
With bounteous promise gay
Of hotter months, that bring
The full perfected day;

To touch with richest gold
The ripe fruit, ere it fall;

And smile through cloud and cold
On Winter's funeral.

Now with resplendent flood
Gladden my waking eyes,
And stir my slothful blood
To joyous enterprise.

Arise, arise, as when

At first God said LIGHT BE!
That He might make us men
With eyes His light to see.

Scatter the clouds that hide
The face of heaven, and show
Where sweet Peace doth abide,
Where Truth and Beauty grow.

Awaken, cheer, adorn,
Invite, inspire, assure

The joys that praise thy morn
The toil thy noons mature:

And soothe the eve of day,
That darkens back to death;
O golden Sun, whose ray
Our path illumineth!

BOOK III

ΤΟ

R. W. D.

I

O MY vague desires !

Ye lambent flames of the soul, her offspring fires:
That are my soul herself in pangs sublime
Rising and flying to heaven before her time:

What doth tempt you forth

To drown in the south or shiver in the frosty north?
What seek ye or find ye in your random flying,
Ever soaring aloft, soaring and dying?

Joy, the joy of flight!

They hide in the sun, they flare and dance in the night;

Gone up, gone out of sight: and ever again

Follow fresh tongues of fire, fresh pangs of pain.

Ah! they burn my soul,

The fires, devour my soul that once was whole :
She is scattered in fiery phantoms day by day,
But whither, whither? ay whither? away, away!

Could I but control

These vague desires, these leaping flames of the soul: Could I but quench the fire: ah! could I stay

My soul that flieth, alas, and dieth away!

2

LONDON SNOW

WHEN men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven ;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled-marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air ;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing ;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder :

When now already the sun, in pale display Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: But even for them awhile no cares encumber Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

3

THE VOICE OF NATURE

I STAND on the cliff and watch the veiled sun paling
A silver field afar in the mournful sea,

The scourge of the surf, and plaintive gulls sailing.
At ease on the gale that smites the shuddering lea :
Whose smile severe and chaste

June never hath stirred to vanity, nor age defaced.
In lofty thought strive, O spirit, for ever:

In courage and strength pursue thine own endeavour.

Ah! if it were only for thee, thou restless ocean

Of waves that follow and roar, the sweep of the tides ; Wer't only for thee, impetuous wind, whose motion Precipitate all o'errides, and turns, nor abides: For you sad birds and fair,

Or only for thee, bleak cliff, erect in the air; Then well could I read wisdom in every feature, O well should I understand the voice of Nature.

But far away, I think, in the Thames valley,

The silent river glides by flowery banks: And birds sing sweetly in branches that arch an alley Of cloistered trees, moss-grown in their ancient ranks : Where if a light air stray,

"Tis laden with hum of bees and scent of may.