No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees!

THE NIGHTINGALE

By William Wordsworth

NIGHTINGALE! thou surely

art

A creature of a " fiery heart":
These notes of thine

pierce and pierce;

they

Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
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!

TO A SKYLARK

By William Wordsworth

P with me! up with me into the clouds !

For thy song, Lark, is strong; Up with me, up with me into the clouds!

Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,

Lift me, guide me, till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There's madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me, high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou wouldst be loth
To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river,
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,
I, with my fate contented, will plod on,
And hope for higher raptures when life's day is
done.

TINTERN ABBEY

By William Wordsworth

HAVE learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts.

TO THE CUCKOO

By William Wordsworth

BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee

Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear,

From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me

No Bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace

Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place,

That is fit home for Thee!