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.

William Wordsworth

WA

WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME

ARBLE me now for joy of Lilac-time, Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and sweet life's sake and death's the same as life's,

Souvenirs of earliest summer - birds' eggs, and the first berries;

Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)

Put in April and May- the hylas croaking in the ponds the elastic air,

Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple

high-hole flashing his golden wings,

The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the

The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;

The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brownbreasted,

With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,

Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;

The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;

- For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?

Thou, Soul, unloosen'd-the restlessness after I know not what;

Come! let us lag here no longer - let us be up and away!

O for another world! O if one could fly like a bird!

O to escape-to sail forth as in a ship!

To glide with thee, O Soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters!

Gathering these hints, these preludes - the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew;

(With additional songs - every spring will I now strike up additional songs,

Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)

The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,

Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,

Samples and sorts not for themselves, but for their atmosphere,

To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them, Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and

scenes,

My mind henceforth, and all its meditations

my recitatives,

My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,

(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)

To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds, A warble for joy of Lilac-time.

Walt Whitman

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE

souls that balance joy and

With tears and smiles from heaven

again

The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,
Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

SURSUM CORDA