For my taste the blackberry cone Purpled over hedge and stone; Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond; Mine the walnut slopes beyond;
Mine, on bending orchard trees, Apples of Hesperides!
Still, as my horizon grew Larger grew my riches, too; And all the world I saw or knew, Seemed a complex Chinese toy, Fashioned for a barefoot boy!
Oh, for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread,- Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frog's orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch: pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man, Live and laugh, as boyhood can! Though the flinty slopes be hard, Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every morning from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, Lose the freedom of the sod, Like a colt's for work be shod, Made to tread the mills of toil, Up and down in ceaseless moil: Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground; Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
LITTLE inmate, full of mirth, Chirping on my kitchen hearth,
Wheresoe'er be thine abode, Always harbinger of good,
Pay me for thy warm retreat With a song more soft and sweet; In return thou shalt receive Such a strain as I can give.
Thus thy praise shall be expressed, Inoffensive, welcome guest! While the rat is on the scout, And the mouse with curious snout, With what vermin else infest Ev'ry dish, and spoil the best;
Frisking thus before the fire,
Thou hast all thine heart's desire.
Though in voice and shape they be Formed as if akin to thee, Thou surpassest, happier far, Happiest grasshoppers that are; Theirs is but a summer's song, Thine endures the winter long, Unimpaired, and shrill and clear, Melody throughout the year.
Neither night nor dawn of day Puts a period to thy play!
Sing, then, and extend thy span Far beyond the date of man. Wretched man, whose years are spent In repining, discontent,
Lives not, aged though he be,
Half a span, compared with thee.
WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze,
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Alòng the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company;
I gazed and gazed-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought;
For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
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