Nature and Elements

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

 

So careful of the type she seems,

 

The last red leaf is whirled away,

 

He clasps the crag with crookèd hands;

 

Sunset and evening star,

 

Sunset and evening star,

 

I come from haunts of coot and hern,

 

Break, break, break,

 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

 

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

 

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

 

Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,

 

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

 

O! swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,

 

Orpheus with his lute made trees,

 

His nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields.

 

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit

 

I never saw a wild thing

 

Don’t you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?

 

Be a good animal, true to your instincts.

 

Praised be You, my Lord, with all your creatures,

 

I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

 

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,