A never, never-ending song,
To welcome in the May.

The magpie chatters with delight;
The mountain raven's youngling brood
Have left the mother and the nest;
And they go rambling east and west
In search of their own food;
Or through the glittering vapours dart
In very wantonness of heart.

Beneath a rock, upon the grass,
Two boys are sitting in the sun,-
It seems they have no work to do,
Or that their work is done.

On pipes of sycamore they play
The fragments of a Christmas hymn;
Or with that plant which in our dale
We call Stag-horn, or Fox's Tail,
Their rusty hats they trim:

And thus, as happy as the day,
Those shepherds wear the time away.

Along the river's stony marge
The sand-lark chants a joyous song;
The thrush is busy in the wood,
And carols loud and strong.

A thousand lambs are on the rocks,
All newly born! both earth and sky
Keep jubilee; and, more than all,
Those boys with their green coronal;
They never hear the cry,—

That plaintive cry! which up the hill

Comes from the depth of Dungeon-Ghyll.