| |
| BEST and brightest, come away! | |
| Fairer far than this fair Day, | |
| Which, like thee to those in sorrow, | |
| Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow | |
| To the rough Year just awake | 5 |
| In its cradle on the brake. | |
| The brightest hour of unborn Spring, | |
| Thro’ the winter wandering, | |
| Found, it seems, the halycon Morn | |
| To hoar February born; | 10 |
| Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, | |
| It kissed the forehead of the Earth, | |
| And smiled upon the silent sea, | |
| And bade the frozen streams be free, | |
| And waked to music all their fountains, | 15 |
| And breathed upon the frozen mountains, | |
| And like a prophetess of May | |
| Strewed flowers upon the barren way, | |
| Making the wintry world appear | |
| Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. | 20 |
| |
| Away, away, from men and towns, | |
| To the wild woods and the downs— | |
| To the silent wilderness | |
| Where the soul need not repress | |
| Its music lest it should not find | 25 |
| An echo in another’s mind, | |
| While the touch of Nature’s art | |
| Harmonizes heart to heart. | |
| I leave this notice on my door | |
| For each accustomed visitor:— | 30 |
| ‘I am gone into the fields | |
| To take what this sweet hour yields;— | |
| Reflection, you may come to-morrow, | |
| Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.— | |
| You with the unpaid bill, Despair,— | 35 |
| You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,— | |
| I will pay you in the grave,— | |
| Death will listen to your stave. | |
| Expectation too, be off! | |
| To-day is for itself enough; | 40 |
| Hope, in pity mock not Woe | |
| With smiles, nor follow where I go; | |
| Long having lived on thy sweet food, | |
| At length I find one moment’s good | |
| After long pain—with all your love, | 45 |
| This you never told me of.’ | |
| |
| Radiant Sister of the Day, | |
| Awake! arise! and come away! | |
| To the wild woods and the plains, | |
| And the pools where Winter rains | 50 |
| Image all their roof of leaves, | |
| Where the pine its garland weaves | |
| Of sapless green and ivy dun | |
| Round stems that never kiss the sun; | |
| Where the lawns and pastures be, | 55 |
| And the sandhills of the sea;— | |
| Where the melting hoar-frost wets | |
| The daisy-star that never sets, | |
| And wind-flowers, and violets, | |
| Which yet join not scent to hue, | 60 |
| Crown the pale year weak and new; | |
| When the night is left behind | |
| In the deep east, dun and blind, | |
| And the blue noon is over us, | |
| And the multitudinous | 65 |
| Billows murmur at our feet, | |
| Where the earth and ocean meet, | |
| And all things seem only one | |
| In the universal sun. | |
| |
