Satisfied with what you bring,
Fading morning-stars of Spring.
You have brightened doubtful days,
You have sweetened long delays,
Fooling our enchanted reason
To miscalculate the season.

But when doubt and fear are fled,
When the kine leave wintry shed,
And 'mong grasses green and tall
Find their fodder, make their stall;
When the wintering swallow flies
Homeward back from southern skies,
To the dear old cottage thatch
Where it loves to build and hatch,
That its young may understand,
Nor forget, this English land;
When the cuckoo, mocking rover,
Laughs that April loves are over;
When the hawthorn, all ablow,
Mimics the defeated snow;
Then you give one last look round,
Stir the sleepers underground,
Call the campion to awake,

Tell the speedwell courage take,
Bid the eyebright have no fear,
Whisper in the bluebell's ear
Time has come for it to flood
With its blue waves all the wood,
Mind the stitchwort of its pledge
To replace you in the hedge,
Bid the ladysmocks good-bye,
Close your bonnie lids and die;
And, without one look of blame,
Go as gently as you came.

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And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
The Mænad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide,
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair
Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare

Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE Here, where the world is quiet; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams;

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If all the flowers of all the fields on earth

By wonder-working summer were made one, Its fragrance were not sweeter in the sun, Its treasure-house of leaves were not more worth Than those wherefrom thy light of musing mirth Shone, till each leaf whereon thy pen would run Breathed life, and all its breath was benison. Beloved beyond all names of English birth, More dear than mightier memories; gentlest name That ever clothed itself with flower-sweet fame, Or linked itself with loftiest names of old

II

By right and might of loving; I, that am Less than the least of those within thy fold, Give only thanks for them to thee, Charles Lamb.

BEN JONSON

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform, With many a valley impleached with ivy and vine, Wherein the springs of all the streams run wine, And many a crag full-faced against the storm, The mountain where thy Muse's feet made warm Those lawns that revelled with her dance divine Shines yet with fire as it was wont to shine From tossing torches round the dance a-swarm. Nor less, high-stationed on the grey grave heights, High-thoughted seers with heaven's heart-kindling lights

ΙΟ

Hold converse: and the herd of meaner things Knows or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed

Darkening thy soul with shadow of thunderous wings.

HOPE AND FEAR

Beneath the shadow of dawn's aërial cope,
With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere,
Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer

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