Full summer and at noon; from a waste bed
Convolvulus, musk-mallow, poppies spread
The triumph of the sunshine overhead.

Blue on refulgent ash-trees lies the heat;
It tingles on the hedge-rows; the young wheat
Sleeps, warm in golden verdure, at my feet.

The pale, sweet grasses of the hayfield blink;
The heath-moors, as the bees of honey drink,
Suck the deep bosom of the day. To think

Of all that beauty by the light defined
None shares my vision! Sharply on my mind
Presses the sorrow: fern and flower are blind.

Full often as I rove by path or stile,
To watch the harvest ripening in the vale,
Slowly and sweetly, like a growing smile—
A smile that ends in laughter—the quick gale
Upon the breadths of gold-green wheat descends;
While still the swallow, with unbaffled grace,
About his viewless quarry dips and bends—
And all the fine excitement of the chase
Lies in the hunter's beauty: In the eclipse
Of that brief shadow, how the barley's beard
Tilts at the passing gloom, and wild-rose dips
Among the white-tops in the ditches rear'd:

A full moon on the night of the seventeenth:
this is the first time it has happened in years.
There is a drought now, no clouds in the sky:
I can see each hair on the rabbit!

Full many sing to me and thee
Their riches gather'd by the sea;
But I will sing, for I'm footsore,
The burthen of the barren shore.

The hue of love how lively shown
In this sole found cerulean stone
By twenty leagues of ocean roar.
O, burthen of the barren shore!

And these few crystal fragments bright,
As clear as truth, as strong as right,
I found in footing twenty more.
O, burthen of the barren shore!

And how far did I go for this
Small, precious piece of ambergris?
Of weary leagues I went threescore.

Full many are the centuries since the days
When early Christians traveled to great shrines,
Weary and spent, along hot, dusty ways,
To hear, at Easter time, the blessed lines
Read to assure them of the living Christ —
Words that could strengthen faith, sorrow allay.
These pilgrims counted it a thing unpriced
To hear again, " The stone was rolled away. "

No distant journey needs must be to feel
The joy that pulses with new bud and leaf;
And here, in Easter quiet, heart may kneel
To grasp his comfort after winter grief.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
That to be hated needs but to be seen,
Invites my lays; be present sylvan maids,
And graceful deer reposing in the shades.

I am the Morning and the Evening Star,
Drag the slow barge, or wheel the rapid car
While wrapped in fire the realms of ether glow,
Or private dirt in public virtue throw.

How small of all that human hearts endure
The short and simple annals of the poor!
I would commend their bodies to the rack;
At least we'll die with harness on our back!

Full happy is the man who comes at last
— Into the safe completion of his year;
Weathered the perils of his spring, that blast
— How many blossoms promising and dear!
And of his summer, with dread passions fraught
— That oft, like fire through the ripening corn,
Blight all with mocking death and leave distraught
— Loved ones to mourn the ruined waste forlorn.
But now, though autumn gave but harvest slight,
— Oh, grateful is he to the powers above
For winter's sunshine, and the lengthened night

A Fryar was walking in Exeter-street
Drest up in his Garb like a Gentleman neat;
He there with a wanton young Lady did meet
And freely did offer and earnestly proffer
to give her a Bottle of Wine.

Love, let us not stand to Discourse in the Cold,
My amorous Jewel I prithee behold;
Then straight he pull'd out a whole handful of Gold
And said, My dear honey, here 's plenty of Money;
I'll give thee a Guinny or two.

The glittering Guinnies soon dazel'd her eyes,
That privately straight she began to devise

Fruitful Earth drinks up the rain,
Trees from Earth drink that again,
The Sea drinks the Air, the Sun
Drinks the Sea, and him the Moon:
Is it reason then d'ee think
I should thirst when all else drink?

The fruit of the orchard is over-ripe, Elaine,
And leaves are crisping on the garden wall.
Leaves on the garden path are wet and rain
Drips from the low shrubs with a steady fall.

It is long, so long since I was here, Elaine,
Moles have gnawed the rose tree at its root;
You did not think that I would come again,
Least of all in the day of falling fruit.