Page:Poems Welby.djvu/38

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30
And from her full melodious heart
She pours her strains of love;
And now her quivering wings fling back
The golden light, that floods her track,
Now scarcely seems to move,
But floats awhile on waveless wings,
Then soars away, and, soaring, sings.

Bird of the pure and dewy morn!
How soft thy heavenward lay
Floats up, where light and life are born
Around the rosy day!
And, as the balm that fills the hour
Lies soft upon each waving flower,
The happy wind at play
Tells, as its voice goes laughing by,
The lark is singing in the sky.

When shall thy fearless wing find rest,
Bird of the dewy hours?
When wilt thou seek thy little nest,
Close hid among the flowers?
Not till the bright clouds, one by one,
Are marshalled round the setting sun,
In heaven's celestial bowers,
Shall the old forest round thee fling
Its mournful shades, O lonely thing!

Lonely! and did I call thee lone?
'T was but a careless word: