Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf5
Round the elm-tree hole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!10
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture15
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!20
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;
"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"—say,5
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
SAUL
I
Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, Kiss my
cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek. And he,
"Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, Neither drunken
nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent Thou return with the joyful
assurance the King liveth yet, Shall our lip with the honey be bright,
with the water be wet. For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space
of three days, Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor
of praise, To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife,
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life. 10