While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, Make all one band of paramours, Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, Art sole in thy employment :
A Life, a Presence like the Air, Scattering thy gladness without care, Too blest with any one to pair ; Thyself thy own enjoyment.
Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, That twinkle to the gusty breeze, Behold him perched in ecstacies, Yet seeming still to hover ; There where the flutter of his wings Upon his back and body flings Shadows and sunny glimmerings, That cover him all over.
My dazzled sight he oft deceives, A Brother of the dancing leaves; Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves Pours forth his song in gushes;
As if by that exulting strain
He mocked and treated with disdain The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes.*
* While thus before my eyes he gleams, A brother of the leaves he seems, When in a moment forth he teems His little song in gushes;
As if it pleased him to disdain
And mock the form which he did feign, While he was dancing with the train
Of leaves among the bushes.-Edit. 1815.
PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises; Long as there's a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story: There's a flower that shall be mine, 'Tis the little Celandine.
Eyes of some men travel far For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go, Men that keep a mighty rout! I'm as great as they, I trow, Since the day I found thee out, Little Flower!--I'll make a stir, Like a sage astronomer.
Modest, yet withal an Elf
Bold, and lavish of thyself;
Since we needs must first have met I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet 'Twas a face I did not know; Thou hast now, go where I
Fifty greetings in a day.
* Common Pilewort. "It is remarkable," Mr. Wordsworth said, “that this flower, coming out so early in the spring as it does, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse."
Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest, Thou wilt come with half a call, Spreading out thy glossy breast Like a careless Prodigal ; Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.
Poets, vain men in their mood! Travel with the multitude:
Never heed them; I aver
That they all are wanton wooers;
But the thrifty cottager, Who stirs little out of doors, Joys to spy thee near her home; Spring is coming, Thou art come !
Comfort have thou of thy merit, Kindly, unassuming Spirit! Careless of thy neighbourhood, Thou dost show thy pleasant face On the moor, and in the wood, In the lane ;-there's not a place, Howsoever mean it be,
But 'tis good enough for thee.*
Ill befal the yellow flowers, Children of the flaring hours! Buttercups, that will be seen, Whether we will see or no ;
* This is a most accurate description of the local habits of the little star-like flower. It is of the same colour, and about the same size as the buttercup, but grows more in clusters, and closer to the ground.-ED.
Others, too, of lofty mien ; They have done as worldlings do, Taken praise that should be thine, Little, humble Celandine!
Prophet of delight and mirth, Ill-requited upon earth;
Herald of a mighty band, Of a joyous train ensuing, Serving at my heart's command, Tasks that are no tasks renewing,t I will sing, as doth behove, Hymns in praise of what I love!
TO THE SAME FLOWER.
PLEASURES newly found are sweet When they lie about our feet: February last, my heart
First at sight of thee was glad ;
All unheard of as thou art,
Thou must needs, I think, have had,
Celandine! and long ago,
Praise of which I nothing know.
I have not a doubt but he, Whosoe'er the man might be, Who the first with pointed rays (Workman worthy to be sainted)
* Scorned and slighted upon earth.-Edit. 1815. Singing at my heart's command,
In the lanes my thoughts pursuing.-Edit. 1815.
Set the sign-board in a blaze, When the rising sun he painted, Took the fancy from a glance At thy glittering countenance.
Soon as gentle breezes bring, News of winter's vanishing, And the children build their bowers, Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould All about with full-blown flowers, Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold! With the proudest thou art there, Mantling in the tiny square.
Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure, Sighed to think, I read a book Only read, perhaps, by me; Yet I long could overlook Thy bright coronet and Thee, And thy arch and wily ways, And thy store of other praise.
Blithe of heart, from week to week Thou dost play at hide-and-seek; While the patient primrose sits Like a beggar in the cold, Thou, a flower of wiser wits, Slip'st into thy sheltering hold; Liveliest of the vernal train * When ye all are out again.
* Bright as any of the train.-Edit. 1815.
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