[TO A SINGING WARBLER]
"Beauty! all—all—is beauty?"
Was ever a bird so wrong!
"No young in the nest, no mate, no duty?"
Ribald! is this your song?
"Glad it is ended," are you?
The Spring and its nuptial fear?
"Freedom is better than love?" beware you
There will be May next year!
"Beauty!" again? still "beauty"?
Wait till the winter comes!
Till kestrel and hungry kite seek booty
And there are so few crumbs!
Wait? nay, fling it unbidden,
The false little song you prate!
Too sweet are its fancies to be chidden,
E'en of the rudest fate!
[TO THE SEA]
Art thou enraged, O sea, with the blue peace
Of heaven, so to uplift thine armèd waves,
Thy billowing rebellion 'gainst its ease,
And with Tartarean mutter from cold caves,
From shuddering profundities where shapes
Of awe glide through entangled leagues of ooze,
To hoot thy watery omens evermore,
And evermore thy moanings interfuse
With seething necromancy and mad lore?