BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head, With brightest sunshine round me spread Of spring's unclouded weather, In this sequestered nook how sweet To sit upon my orchard-seat! And birds and flowers once more to greet, My last year's friends together. 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AUTUMN WOODS by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A HYMN [TO THE NAME AND] IN HONOR OF SAINT TERESA by RICHARD CRASHAW FONTENOY, 1745: 1. BEFORE THE BATTLE: NIGHT by EMILY LAWLESS BALL'S BLUFF; A REVERIE by HERMAN MELVILLE THE ALLEY. AN IMITATION OF SPENSER by ALEXANDER POPE AMORETTI: 34 by EDMUND SPENSER FRAGMENT OF AN 'ANTIGONE' by MATTHEW ARNOLD ON A PORTRAIT by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD VERSES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF TIGHE'S 'PSYCHE' by BERNARD BARTON |