English Lyrics

iving to dirge the dead, And even the snowdrop keeps its bed! Could you not come when woods are green ? Could you not come when lambs are seen ? When the primrose laughs from its childlike sleep, And the violets hide and the bluebells peep ? When the air as your breath is sweet, and skies Have all but the soul of your limpid eyes, And the year, growing confident day by day, Weans lusty June from the breast of May ? Yet had you come then, the lark had lent In vain his music, the thorn its scent, In vain the woodbine budded, in vain The rippling smile of the April rain. Your voice would have silenced merle and thrush, And the rose outbloomed would have blushed to blush, And Summer, seeing you, paused, and known That the glow of your beauty outshone its own. So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness. THREE SONNETS WRITTEN IN MID-CHANNEL Now upon English soil I soon shall stand, Homeward from climes that fancy deems more fair; And well I know that there will greet me there No soft foam fawning upon smiling strand, No scent of orange-groves, no zephyrs bland, But Amazonian March, with breast half bare And sleety arrows whistling through the air, Will be my welcome from that burly land. Yet he who boasts his birthplace yonder lies, Owns in his heart a mood akin to scorn For sensuous slopes that bask 'neath ...