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Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,

If any calm, a calm despair:

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,

And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep.

THE THROSTLE

By Alfred Tennyson

UMMER is coming, summer

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is coming.

I know it, I know it, I know

Light again, leaf again, life again,

love again,"

Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue.

Last year you sang it as gladly.

"New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new

That you should carol so madly?

"Love again, song again, nest again, young again,"

Never a prophet so crazy!

And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,

See, there is hardly a daisy.

"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!
O warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden."

APRIL DAYS

(From "In Memoriam ")
By Alfred Tennyson

IP down upon the northern shore,

O sweet new-year delaying long;

Thou doest expectant nature

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wrong;

Delaying long, delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speedwell's darling blue,
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.
O thou, new-year, delaying long,
Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
That longs to burst a frozen bud,
And flood a fresher throat with song.

EARLY SPRING

By Alfred Tennyson

I

NCE more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,

And domes the red-plow'd hills

With loving blue;

The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

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II

Opens a door in Heaven;

From skies of glass

A Jacob's ladder falls

On greening grass,

And o'er the mountain-walls

Young angels pass.

III

Before them fleets the shower,

And burst the buds,

And shine the level lands,

And flash the floods;

The stars are from their hands

Flung thro' the woods,

IV

The woods with living airs
How softly fann'd,

Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,

Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.

V

O follow, leaping blood,
The season's lure!

O heart, look down and up,

Serene, secure,

Warm as the crocus cup,
Like snow-drops, pure!

VI

Past, Future glimpse and fade Thro' some slight spell, Some gleam from yonder vale, Some far blue fell,

And sympathies, how frail,

In sound and smell!

VII

Till at thy chuckled note,

Thou twinkling bird, The fairy fancies range,

And, lightly stirred, Ring little bells of change

From word to word.

VIII

For now the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,

And thaws the cold, and fills
The flower with dew;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The poets too.

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Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail

On winding stream or distant sea;

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