Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 16 Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20 Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

ODE

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,

Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?

Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wond'rous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns

Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large bluebells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then

On the earth ye live again;

And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying.

Thus ye teach us, every day,

Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!

Here, your earth-born souls still speak

To mortals, of their little week ;

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