Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume II. Love. 1904. | | | | III. Love’s Beginnings | | “O Swallow, Swallow, flying South” | | Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) |
| | From “The Princess”
O SWALLOW, Swallow, flying, flying South, | |
| Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, | |
| And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. | |
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| O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, | |
| That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, | 5 |
| And dark and true and tender is the North. | |
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| O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light | |
| Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, | |
| And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. | |
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| O were I thou that she might take me in, | 10 |
| And lay me on her bosom, and her heart | |
| Would rock the snowy cradle till I died! | |
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| Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, | |
| Delaying as the tender ash delays | |
| To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? | 15 |
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| O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: | |
| Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, | |
| But in the North long since my nest is made. | |
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| O tell her, brief is life, but love is long, | |
| And brief the sun of summer in the North, | 20 |
| And brief the moon of beauty in the South. | |
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| O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, | |
| Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, | |
| And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee. | | | | |
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