Nature and Elements

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree.

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the earth.

O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round.

Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can.

’Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf’s young.

O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware.

The moving moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside.

The moving moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoarfrost spread; But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoarfrost spread; But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

Alone, alone, all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea.

The hornèd Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip.

The hornèd Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip.