One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array
Presiding Spirit here to-day

Dost lead the revels of the May,

And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers
Make all one band of paramours,

Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;

A Life, a Presence like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,

Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives-
A Brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes,

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain

The voiceless Form he chose to feign

While fluttering in the bushes.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

TO THE MAN-OF-WAR-BIRD

THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renewed on thy prodigious pinions,

The Maryland Yellow-Throat

(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,

As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
(Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)

Far, far at sea,

1495

After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,

With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,

The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,

The limpid spread of air cerulean,

Thou also re-appearest.

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)

To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,

Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,

Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces,

realms gyrating,

At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America,

That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, hadst thou my soul,

What joys! what joys were thine!

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

THE MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT

WHEN May bedecks the naked trees

With tassels and embroideries,
And many blue-eyed violets beam
Along the edges of the stream,
I hear a voice that seems to say,
Now near at hand, now far away,
"Witchery-witchery-witchery."

An incantation so serene,

So innocent, befits the scene:

There's magic in that small bird's note-
See, there he flits-the Yellow-throat;
A living sunbeam, tipped with wings,
A spark of light that shines and sings
"Witchery-witchery-witchery."

You prophet with a pleasant name,
If out of Mary-land you came,
You know the way that thither goes
Where Mary's lovely garden grows:
Fly swiftly back to her, I pray,
And try, to call her down this way,
"Witchery-witchery-witchery!"

Tell her to leave her cockle-shells,
And all her little silver bells
That blossom into melody,

And all her maids less fair than she.
She does not need these pretty things,
For everywhere she comes, she brings
"Witchery-witchery-witchery !”

The woods are greening overhead,
And flowers adorn each mossy bed;
The waters babble as they run-
One thing is lacking, only one:
If Mary were but here to-day,
I would believe your charming lay,
"Witchery-witchery-witchery !”

Along the shady road I look-
Who's coming now across the brook?
A woodland maid, all robed in white-
The leaves dance round her with delight,
The stream laughs out beneath her feet-
Sing, merry bird, the charm's complete,
"Witchery-witchery-witchery !"

Henry Van Dyke [1852

"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART"

O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art
A creature of a "fiery heart ":--

These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;
Tumultuous harmony and fierce!

Philomel

Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
A song in mockery and despite

Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
And steady bliss, and all the loves
Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.

I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze:

He did not cease, but cooed-and cooed;
And somewhat pensively he wooed:
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;

Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the Song-the Song for me!

1497

William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

PHILOMEL

As it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made,

Beasts did leap and birds did sing,

Trees did grow and plants did spring;
Everything did banish moan
Save the Nightingale alone:

She, poor bird, as all forlorn
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the doleful'st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
Fie, fie, fie! now would she cry;
Tereu, Tereu! by and by;
That to hear her so complain
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own.

Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain:

Senseless trees they cannot hear thee,
Ruthless beasts they will not. cheer thee:

King Pandion he is dead,

All thy friends are lapped in lead;
All thy fellow birds do sing
Careless of thy sorrowing:
Even so, poor bird, like thee,

None alive will pity me.

Richard Barnfield [1574-1627]

PHILOMELA

HARK! ah, the nightingale

The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!

What triumph! hark!-what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,

Still, after many years, in distant lands,

Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain

That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain— Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn

With its cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,

To thy racked heart and brain
Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,

The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?

Dost thou again peruse

With hot cheeks and seared eyes

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?

Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,