Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/802

 THOMAS HOOD

Where are the songs of Summer? With the sun,

Oping the dusky eyelids of the South,

Till shade and silence waken up as one,

And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.

Where are the merry birds ^ Away, away,

On panting wings through the inclement skies,

Lest owls should prey

Undazzled at noonday, And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Rummer? In the West, Blushing their last to the last sunny hours, When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flow'rs

To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer, the green prime, The many, many leaves all twinkling^ Three On the moss'd elm 5 three on the naked lime Trembling, and one upon the old oak-tree *

Where is the Dryad's immortal ity ? Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through

In the smooth holly's green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard,

The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe gram,

And honey bees have stored The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells; The swallows all have wing'd across the main ; But here the autumn Melancholy dwells,

And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.

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