| |
| O BROTHERS, who must ache and stoop | |
| O’er wordy tasks in London town, | |
| How scantly Laura trips for you— | |
| A poem in a gown! | |
| How rare if Grub-street grew a lawn! | 5 |
| How sweet if Nature’s lap could spare | |
| A dandelion for the Strand, | |
| A cowslip for Mayfair! | |
| |
| But here, from immaterial lyres, | |
| There rings in easy confidence | 10 |
| The blackbird’s bright philosophy | |
| On apple-spray or fence: | |
| For ploughmen wending home from toil | |
| Some patriot thrush outpours his lay, | |
| And voices, wildly eloquent, | 15 |
| The diary of his day. | |
| |
| These living lyrics you may hear | |
| Remembering the lane’s romance, | |
| All hung in wicker heels to chirp | |
| Thin ghosts of utterance: | 20 |
| But where the gusts of liberty | |
| Make Ragged Robin wisely bend, | |
| They quicken hedgerows with their song, | |
| Melodiously unpenned. | |
| |
| If souls of mighty singers leave | 25 |
| The vacant body to its hush, | |
| Does Shelley linger in the lark, | |
| Or Keats possess the thrush? | |
| The end is undecaying doubt, | |
| And in some blackbird’s bosom still | 30 |
| Great Tennyson may sweeten eve | |
| And whistle on the hill. | |
| |
| Come, brothers, to this clean delight, | |
| And watch the velvet-headed tit. | |
| Here ’s honest sorrel in the grass | 35 |
| And sturdy cuckoo-spit: | |
| What shepherds hear you shall not miss, | |
| And at deliverance of dawn | |
| Shall see a miracle of bloom | |
| Across the sparkling lawn. | 40 |
| |
| The forest musically begs | |
| To fan you with its leafy love; | |
| Oh, fall asleep upon this moss | |
| Entreated by the dove! | |
| Here shall that sweet Conservative, | 45 |
| Dear Mother Nature, lend to you | |
| Her lovely rural elements | |
| Beneath the primal blue. | |
| |
| O brothers, who must ache and stoop | |
| O’er wordy tasks in London town, | 50 |
| How scantly Laura trips for you— | |
| A poem in a gown! | |
| How good if Fleet-street grew a lawn! | |
| How sweet if garden-plots could spare | |
| A bed of cloves to scent the Strand, | 55 |
| A pansy for Mayfair! | |
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