The Woodlark

TEEVO cheetio cheevio chee:O where, what can that be?Weedio-weedio: there again!So tiny a trickle of song-strain;And all round not to be foundFor brier, bough, furrow, or green groundBefore or behind or far or at handEither left either rightAnywhere in the sunlight.Well, after all! Ah but hark--'I am the little woodlark.To-day the sky is two and twoWith white strokes and strains of the blueRound a ring, around a ringAnd while I sail (must listen) I singThe skylark is my cousin and heIs known to men more than me. . . when the cry withinSays Go on then I go onTill the longing is less and the good gone

But down drop, if it says Stop,To the all-a-leaf of the treetopAnd after that off the boughI am so very, O so very gladThat I do think there is not to be had . . .The blue wheat-acre is underneathAnd the braided ear breaks out of the sheath,The ear in milk, lush the sash,And crush-silk poppies aflash,The blood-gush blade-gashFlame-rash rudredBud shelling or broad-shedTatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangledDandy-hung dainty head.And down ... the furrow drySunspurge and oxeyeAnd laced-leaved lovelyFoam-tuft fumitoryThrough the velvety wind V-wingedTo the nest's nook I balance and buoyWith a sweet joy of a sweet joy,Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joyOf a sweet--a sweet--sweet--joy.'

I AWOKE in the Midsummer not to call night, |in thewhite and the walk of the morning:The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe | of afinger-nail held to the candle,Or paring of paradisaical fruit, | lovely in waning butlustreless,Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, | ofdark Maenefa the mountain;A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, | en-tangled him, not quit utterly.This was the prized, the desirable sight, | unsought, pre-sented so easily,Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, | eyelid and eyelid ofslumber.

REPEAT that, repeat,Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delight-fully sweet,With a ballad, with a ballad, a reboundOff trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground,hollow hollow hollow ground:The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

'The child is father to the man.'How can he be? The words are wild.Suck any sense from that who can:'The child is father to the man.'No; what the poet did write ran,'The man is father to the child.''The child is father to the man!'How can he be? The words are wild.

THE shepherd's brow fronting forked lightning, ownsThe horror and the havoc and the gloryOf it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven--a storyOf just, majestical, and giant groans.But man--we, scaffold of score brittle bones;Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoaryAge gasp; whose breath is our memento mori--What bass is our viol for tragic tones?He! Hand to mouth he lives, and voids with shame;And, blazoned in however bold the name,Man Jack the man is, just; his mate a hussy.And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame,That ... in smooth spoons spy life's masque mirrored:tameMy tempests there, my fire and fever fussy.

MORTAL my mate, bearing my rock-a-heartWarm beat with cold beat company, shall IEarlier or you fail at our force, and lieThe ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?The telling time our task is; time's some part,Not all, but we were framed to fail and die--One spell and well that one. There, ah therebyIs comfort's carol of all or woe's worst smart.

Field-flown the departed day no morning bringsSaying 'This was yours' with her, but new one, worse.And then that last and shortest . . .

STRIKE, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hailMay's beauty massacre and wisped wild clouds growOut on the giant air; tell Summer No,Bid joy back, have at the harvest, keep Hope pale.

HARK, hearer, hear what I do; lend a thought now, make believeWe are leafwhelmed somewhere with the hoodOf some branchy bunchy bushybowered wood,Southern dene or Lancashire clough or Devon cleave,That leans along the loins of hills, where a candycoloured, wherea gluegold-brownMarbled river, boisterously beautiful, betweenRoots and rocks is danced and dandled, all in froth and water-blowballs, down.We are there, when we hear a shoutThat the hanging honeysuck, the dogeared hazels in the coverMakes dither, makes hoverAnd the riot of a routOf, it must be, boys from the townBathing: it is summer's sovereign good.

By there comes a listless stranger: beckoned by the noiseHe drops towards the river: unseenSees the bevy of them, how the boysWith dare and with downdolphinry and bellbright bodies hud-dling out,Are earthworld, airworld, waterworld thorough hurled, all byturn and turn about.

This garland of their gambols flashes in his breastInto such a sudden zestOf summertime joysThat he hies to a pool neighbouring; sees it is the bestThere; sweetest, freshest, shadowiest;Fairyland; silk-beech, scrolled ash, packed sycamore, wildwychelm, hornbeam fretty overstoodBy. Rafts and rafts of flake-leaves light, dealt so, painted on the air,Hang as still as hawk or hawkmoth, as the stars or as the angelsthere,Like the thing that never knew the earth, never off rootsRose. Here he feasts: lovely all is! No more: off with--down he dingsHis bleached both and woolwoven wear:Careless these in coloured wispAll lie tumbled-to; then with loop-locksForward falling, forehead frowning, lips crispOver finger-teasing task, his twiny bootsFast he opens, last he offwringsTill walk the world he can with bare his feetAnd come where lies a coffer, burly all of blocksBuilt of chancequarried, selfquained rocksAnd the water warbles over into, filleted with glassy grassyquicksilvery shives and shootsAnd with heavenfallen freshness down from moorland still brims,Dark or daylight on and on. Here he will then, here he willthe fleetFlinty kindcold element let break across his limbsLong. Where we leave him, froliclavish while he looks abouthim, laughs, swims.

Enough now; since the sacred matter that I meanI should be wronging longer leaving it to floatUpon this only gambolling and echoing-of-earth note--What is ... the delightful dene?Wedlock. What the water? Spousal love.Father, mother, brothers, sisters, friendsInto fairy trees, wild flowers, wood fernsRanked round the bower