A Morning Song
Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day:
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft,
To give my Love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Notes from them both I'll borrow.
Wake from thy nest, Robin-red-breast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair Love good-morrow
To give my Love good-morrow;
Sing, birds, in every furrow!
—Thomas Heywood.
In March
The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun:
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest:
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising,
There are forty feeding like one!
Like an army defeated,
The snow has retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The ploughboy is whooping—anon—anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains,
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing,
The rain is over and gone!
—William Wordsworth.