In the winter they're silent, the wind is so strong; What it says I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,

And singing and loving-all come back together. But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings, and forever sings he, 'I love my Love, and my Love loves me.'

S. T. Coleridge

V

THE BROOK

I come from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my bank I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows ;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever.

A. Tennyson

VI

STARS

They glide upon their endless way,
For ever calm, for ever bright;
No blind hurry, no delay,

Mark the Daughters of the Night:
They follow in the track of Day,
In divine delight.

Shine on, sweet orbed Souls for aye,

For ever calm, for ever bright:

We ask not whither lies your way,

Nor whence ye came, nor what your light. Be-still a dream throughout the day,

A blessing through the night.

B. Cornwall

VII

THE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

C. Marlowe

VIII

THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES

See the Kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,

Withered leaves-one-two-and three

From the lofty elder tree!

Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly one might think
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Fairy hither tending,
To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.

-But the Kitten, now she starts,

Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts !
First at one, and then its fellow,
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now-now one-
Now they stop and there are none :
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!