A SUNNY SHAFT DID I BEHOLD

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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

SUNNY shaft did I behold,

From sky to earth it slanted: And poised therein a bird so bold Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!

He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled
Within that shaft of sunny mist;
His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,
All else of amethyst!

And thus he sang: "Adieu! adieu!
Love's dreams prove seldom true.
The blossoms they make no delay:
The sparkling dew-drops will not stay.
Sweet month of May,

We must away;

Far, far away!
To-day! to-day!"

HUNTING SONG

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

JP, up! ye dames and lasses gay

To the meadows trip away.

!

'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn, And scare the small birds from the corn. Not a soul at home may stay:

For the shepherds must go

With lance and bow

To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

Leave the hearth and leave the house
To the cricket and the mouse:
Find grannam out a sunny seat,
With babe and lambkin at her feet.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow

To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

THE CHILD IN THE WILDERNESS

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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

NCINCTURED with a twine of leaves
That leafy twine his only dress-

A lovely Boy was plucking fruits

By moonlight in a wilderness.

The moon was bright, the air was free,
And fruits and flowers together grew,

On many a shrub and many a tree;
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a picture rich and rare.

It was a climate where, they say,

The night is more belov'd than day.

But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd That beauteous Boy! to linger here? Alone by night, a little child,

In place so silent and so wild

Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

O you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the
Dove,

The Linnet, and Thrush say, "I love, and I love!"
In the winter they're silent, the wind is so strong;
What it says I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm
weather,

And singing and loving all come back together.
"I love, and I love," almost all the birds say
From sunrise to star-rise, so gladsome are they!
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings, and forever sings he,
"I love my love, and my love loves me."

'Tis no wonder that he's full of joy to the brim,
When he loves his Love, and his Love loves him.

N°

THE INCHCAPE ROCK

ROBERT SOUTHEY

stir in the air, no stir in the sea,

The ship was as still as she could be, Her sails from heaven received no motion, Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock
The waves flow'd over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The good old Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The sun in heaven was shining gay,

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds scream'd as they wheel'd round, And there was joyance in their sound.