WHEN Nature had made all her birds, | |
| With no more cares to think on, | |
| She gave a rippling laugh, and out | |
| There flew a Bobolinkon. | |
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| She laughed again; out flew a mate; | 5 |
| A breeze of Eden bore them | |
| Across the fields of Paradise, | |
| The sunrise reddening o’er them. | |
| |
| Incarnate sport and holiday, | |
| They flew and sang forever: | 10 |
| Their souls through June were all in tune, | |
| Their wings were weary never. | |
| |
| Their tribe, still drunk with air and light, | |
| And perfume of the meadow, | |
| Go reeling up and down the sky, | 15 |
| In sunshine and in shadow. | |
| |
| One springs from out the dew-wet grass; | |
| Another follows after; | |
| The morn is thrilling with their songs | |
| And peals of merry laughter. | 20 |
| |
| From out the marshes and the brook, | |
| They set the tall reeds swinging, | |
| And meet, and frolic in the air, | |
| Half prattling and half singing. | |
| |
| When morning winds sweep meadow-lands | 25 |
| In green and russet billows, | |
| And toss the lonely elm-tree’s boughs, | |
| And silver all the willows, | |
| |
| I see you buffeting the breeze, | |
| Or with its motion swaying, | 30 |
| Your notes half drowned against the wind | |
| Or down the current playing. | |
| |
| When far away o’er grassy flats, | |
| Where the thick wood commences, | |
| The white-sleeved mowers look like specks | 35 |
| Beyond the zigzag fences, | |
| |
| And noon is hot, and barn-roofs gleam | |
| White in the pale blue distance, | |
| I hear the saucy minstrels still | |
| In chattering persistence. | 40 |
| |
| When Eve her domes of opal fire | |
| Piles round the blue horizon, | |
| Or thunder rolls from hill to hill | |
| A Kyrie Eleison, | |
| |
| Still merriest of the merry birds, | 45 |
| Your sparkle is unfading;— | |
| Pied harlequins of June,—no end | |
| Of song and masquerading. | |
| |
| What cadences of bubbling mirth, | |
| Too quick for bar and rhythm! | 50 |
| What ecstasies, too full to keep | |
| Coherent measure with them! | |
| |
| O could I share, without champagne | |
| Or muscadel, your frolic, | |
| The glad delirium of your joy, | 55 |
| Your fun unapostolic, | |
| |
| Your drunken jargon through the fields, | |
| Your bobolonkish gabble, | |
| Your fine Anacreontic glee, | |
| Your tipsy reveller’s babble! | 60 |
| |
| Nay, let me not profane such joy | |
| With similes of folly; | |
| No wine of earth could waken songs | |
| So delicately jolly! | |
| |
| O boundless self-contentment, voiced | 65 |
| In flying air-born bubbles! | |
| O joy that mocks our sad unrest, | |
| And drowns our earth-born troubles! | |
| |
| Hope springs with you: I dread no more | |
| Despondency and dullness; | 70 |
| For Good Supreme can never fail | |
| That gives such perfect fullness. | |
| |
| The life that floods the happy fields | |
| With song and light and color | |
| Will shape our lives to richer states, | 75 |
And heap our measures fuller.
1866. | |
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