Where is the finch, the thrush,
I used to hear?
Ah, they could well abide
The dying year.
Now they no more return,
I hear them not;
They have remained to mourn,
Or else forgot.
STANZAS
Nature doth have her dawn each day,
But mine are far between;
Content, I cry, for, sooth to say,
Mine brightest are, I ween.
For when my sun doth deign to rise,
Though it be her noontide,
Her fairest field in shadow lies,
Nor can my light abide.
Sometimes I bask me in her day,
Conversing with my mate,
But if we interchange one ray,
Forthwith her heats abate.
Through his discourse I climb and see
As from some eastern hill,
A brighter morrow rise to me
Than lieth in her skill.
As ’twere two summer days in one,
Two Sundays come together,
Our rays united make one sun,
With fairest summer weather.
THE INWARD MORNING
Packed in my mind lie all the clothes
Which outward nature wears,
And in its fashion’s hourly change
It all things else repairs.