The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, [1]
The snake slipt under a spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey,
And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away".
[Footnote 1: 1889, Fly.]
APPENDIX
The Poems published in MDCCCXXX and in MDCCCXXXIII which were
temporarily or finally suppressed.
POEMS PUBLISHED IN MDCCCXXX
ELEGIACS
Reprinted in Collected Works among 'Juvenilia', with title
altered to 'Leonine Elegiacs'. The only alterations made in the
text were "wood-dove" for "turtle," and the substitution of "or" for
"and" in the last line but one.
Lowflowing breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in the
gloaming:
Thoro' the black-stemm'd pines only the far river shines.
Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes,
Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall.
Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerily; the grasshopper carolleth clearly;
Deeply the turtle coos; shrilly the owlet halloos;
Winds creep; dews fell chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes
stilly:
Over the pools in the burn watergnats murmur and mourn.
Sadly the far kine loweth: the glimmering water outfloweth:
Twin peaks shadow'd with pine slope to the dark hyaline.
Lowthroned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad
Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.
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