TO JENNY LIND.

Summer hath come, led on by sunny May

The blue-eyed, round whose brow the first pure ray

That trembles from the opening gates of dawn

Still seems to circle, and the mossy lawn,

As they glide gently onward, ever breathes

A beauty and a fragrance, which enwreathes

Within the being until every thought

With a strange mystery of joy is fraught.

And where the hazel forms a leafy screen

Of verdant matting, the cuckoo, unseen,

Chaunts forth her woodnotes through the stilly air,

Whose silent motions far the accents bear.

And thou hast come, sweet Nightingale! once more

O'er our entrancëd spirits to outpour

Thy liquid warblings!‘ Mid the flow'rets’ scent

And summer's gladness rises interblent

Thy loving welcome! Not the bird that sighs

Her thrilling love-tale through the moonlit skies

Of Italy, as erst to Juliet's ear

From the pomegranate tree‘ twas wafted near,

Seizes the soul with ravishment more sweet

Than thy soft tones, stealing unto the seat

Of passion, waking echoes in the breast

Of love, and purity, and quiet rest,

Murmuring through the windings of the soul,

Till interpenetrated is the whole

With holy harmonies, and blissful sense

Of joyance, and straightway is refted thence

All baser feeling, and all earthly leaven,

By the dear magic of that voice from heaven.

Fair Priestess of the Beautiful! that bringest

Missions of sweetness from above, and flingest

In a rich flood of song — now faint, yet clear

As Helicon's own murmurs to the ear,

Now swelling till around our being floats

In thrilling cadences thy bell-like notes,—

The poetry of poetry, the deep

Mysterious essences whose wavings steep

Life in the bliss of angels, and the real

In the ethereal hues of the ideal;

A welcome to thee! heartfelt as the lay

Hymn'd by the panting lark to the young day,

Joyous and loving as the sunny beam

That greets the early primrose, when the dream

Of flowery revels through the noontide hours

First steals upon it. Such a joy is ours

Now, as with falt'ring tones our spirits hail

Thy glad return, O sweetest Nightingale!