Visions

I saw a silver swan swim down the Lea,Singing a sad farewell unto the vale,While fishes leapt to hear her melody,And on each thorn a gentle nightingaleAnd many other birds forbore their notes,Leaping from tree to tree, as she alongThe panting bosom of the current floats,Rapt with the music of her dying song:When from a thick and all-entangled springA neatherd rude came with no small ado,Dreading an ill presage to hear her sing,And quickly struck her tender neck in two;Whereat the birds, methought, flew thence with speed,And inly griev'd for such a cruel deed.

A rose, as fair as ever saw the North,Grew in a little garden all alone;A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth,Nor fairer garden yet was never known:The maidens danc'd about it morn and noon,And learned bards of it their ditties made;The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moonWater'd the root and kiss'd her pretty shade.But well-a-day, the gard'ner careless grew;The maids and fairies both were kept away,And in a drought the caterpillars threwThemselves upon the bud and every spray.God shield the stock! if heaven send no supplies,The fairest blossom of the garden dies.

Down in a valley, by a forest's side,Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves,I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride,As if the lilies grew to be his slaves;The gentle daisy, with her silver crown,Worn in the breast of many a shepherd's lass;The humble violet, that lowly downSalutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass:These, with a many more, methought, complain'dThat Nature should those needless things produce,Which not alone the sun from others gain'dBut turn it wholly to their proper use:I could not choose but grieve that Nature madeSo glorious flowers to live in such a shade.

A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady,That well could tune his pipe, and deftly playThe nymphs asleep with rural minstrelsy,Methought I saw, upon a summer's day,Take up a little satyr in a wood,All masterless forlorn as none did know him,And nursing him with those of his own blood,On mighty Pan he lastly did bestow him;But with the god he long time had not been,Ere he the shepherd and himself forgot,And most ingrateful, ever stepp'd betweenPan and all good befell the poor man's lot:Whereat all good men griev'd, and strongly sworeThey never would be foster-fathers more.