The Darkling Thrush.

I LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings from broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice rang forth among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

November.

MOURNER, who wanderest gray and mute
O'er mouldering leaves and fallen fruit,
Weep, unreproved!

Thou art not for thy sombre suit
The less beloved.

Welcome as April's bridal tears,
Or the ripe smile September wears,
Are thy grave eyes,

Made wistful with the agèd year's
Dim memories.

Thine are the dawns of solemn sheen,
Through interwoven branches seen,
As when doth smite

Through some cathedral's carven screen
The altar's light.

Thou lendest darkness to the yew,
To distant hills a deeper blue;

Thy footsteps wake

Mosses to flower, when flowers are few
In leafless brake.

Fair as her liveliest summer dress
The beech's silver nakedness,

When red and gold,

That robed her for the storm's caress,

Her feet enfold.

Through steel-blue clouds a gleaming wedge Strikes on the berry-jewelled hedge

And dusky wood,

On osiers smooth and tawny sedge
And streams in flood.

And as a child's light laugh beguiles
Sorrow to lose herself in smiles,

The redbreast's lay

Maketh the woodland's silent aisles

Seem almost gay.

'Tis good to watch the loose clouds driven, When the broad south their web hath riven, Or pace again

Beneath a calm snow-burdened heaven

The darkening lane,

Strewn with the maple's moth-like seeds,
And catch the scent of smouldering weeds
O'er brown waves borne,

Of fresh-ploughed loam and silent meads.
And cornfields shorn;

'Tis good to feel thy teardrops fall
Upon the dead fern's quiet pall

Of purple mist,

When frost for their snow-burial
The wolds hath kissed;

But best to watch-when death-like eve
The pensive landscape doth bereave
Of short-lived day-

Thy great pathetic sunsets grieve

Their hearts away.

On the Mountain.

I SCALE the fortress where the winds keep ward O'er health's unrifled hoard;

Each footstep is an ecstacy; my blood

Leaps with the sparkling flood

Of sunshine from God's crystal chalice poured.
Ascending, I behold

Earth's ancient scroll unfold;

The mountain's naked shoulder screens from view
The valley of last night's expectant rest,
Whose hamlet, as the prospect grew,

Shrank to a wood-wren's nest.
Panting with joyful toil, at last I stand
Where taintless breezes range,

An infant holding Nature by the hand,
A new-born creature, to myself most strange;
Exalted to this sovereign height,

I taste awhile an eagle's lone delight;
Then as I scan

The Maker's outspread plan,
My humbled spirit kneels
And uncomplaining feels

The insignificance of man.

Around me slumber giant limbs; below
The vapours crawl that curtain me from care;
A stream unseen is heard to flow;

The breast of peace lies bare;

Reposing there,

I gaze along the avenues of air

To that which seems a sea beyond the sea,

The dim horizon of eternity.