And there I witnessed in the summer hours
A brood of nature’s minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.
John Clare.
CLXXVIII
TIME.
O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence,
Lulling to sad repose the weary sense,
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last, 5