us, and never go.
Need I tell you whose the hand
Bears him high o’er sea and land?
The Mistletoe
Kiss me: there now, little Neddy,
Do you see her staring steady?
There again you had a chance of her!
Didn’t you catch the pretty glance of her?
See her nest! On any planet
Never was a sweeter than it!
Never nest was such as this is:
’Tis the nest of all the kisses,
With the mother kiss-bird sitting
All through Christmas, never flitting,
Kisses, kisses, kisses hatching,
Sweetest birdies, for the catching!
Oh, the precious little brood
Always in a loving mood!—
There’s one under Mamy’s hood!
There, that’s one I caught this minute,
Musical as any linnet!
Where it is, your big eyes question,
With of doubt a wee suggestion?
There it is—upon mouth merry!
There it is—upon cheek cherry!
There’s another on chin-chinnie!
Now it’s off, and lights on Minnie!
There’s another on nose-nosey!
There’s another on lip-rosy!
And the kissy-bird is hatching
Hundreds more for only catching.
Why the mistletoe she chooses,
And the Christmas-tree refuses?
There’s a puzzle for your mother?
I’ll present you with another!
Tell me why, you question-asker,
Cruel, heartless mother-tasker—
Why, of all the trees before her,
Gathered round, or spreading o’er her,
Jenny Wren should choose the apple
For her nursery and chapel!
Or Jack Daw build in the steeple
High above the praying people!
Tell me why the limping plover
O’er moist meadow likes to hover;
Why the partridge with such trouble
Builds her nest where soon the stubble
Will betray her hop-thumb-cheepers
To the eyes of all the reapers!—
Tell me, Charley; tell me, Janey;
Answer all, or answer any,
And I’ll tell you, with much pleasure,
Why this little bird of treasure
Nestles only in the mistletoe,
Never, never goes the thistle to.
Not an answer? Tell without it?
Yes—all that I know about it:—
Mistletoe, then, cannot flourish,
Cannot find the food to nourish
But on other plant when planted—
And for kissing two are wanted.
That is why the kissy-birdie
Looks about for oak-tree sturdy
And the plant that grows upon it
Like a wax-flower on a bonnet.
But, my blessed little mannie,
All the birdies are not cannie
That the kissy-birdie hatches!
Some are worthless little patches,
Which indeed if they don’t smutch you,
’Tis they’re dead before they touch you!
While for kisses vain and greedy,
Kisses flattering, kisses needy,
They are birds that never waddled
Out of eggs that only addled!
Some there are leave spots behind them,
On your cheek for years you’d find them:
Little ones, I do beseech you,
Never let such birdies reach you.
It depends what net you venture
What the sort of bird will enter!
I will tell you in a minute
What net takes kiss—lark or linnet—
Any bird indeed worth hatching
And just therefore worth the catching:
The one net that never misses
Catching at least some true kisses,
Is the heart that, loving truly,
Always loves the old love newly;
But to spread out would undo it—
Let the birdies fly into it.
Wild Flowers
Content Primroses,
With hearts at rest in your thick leaves’ soft care,
Peeping as from his mother’s lap the child
Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!—
Hanging Harebell,
Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,
Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!—
Fluttering-wild
Anemone, so well
Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,
Yieldest thee, helpless—wilfully,
With “Take me or leave me,”
“Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone!—”
Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming
Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!—
Fire-winged Pimpernel,
Communing with some hidden well,
And secrets with the sun-god holding,
At fixed hour folding and unfolding!—
How is it with you, children all,
When human children on you fall,
Gather you in eager haste,
Spoil your plenty with their waste—
Fill and fill their dropping hands?
Feel you hurtfully disgraced
By their injurious demands?
Do you know them from afar,
Shuddering at their merry hum,
Growing faint as near they come?
Blind and deaf they think you are—
Is it only ye are dumb?
You alive at least, I think,
Trembling almost on the brink
Of our lonely consciousness:
If it be so,
Take this comfort for your woe,
For the breaking of your rest,
For the tearing in your breast,
For the blotting of the sun,
For the death too soon begun,
For all else beyond redress—
Or what seemeth so to be—
That the children’s wonder-springs
Bubble high at sight of you,
Lovely, lowly, common things:
In you more than you they see!
Take this too—that, walking out,
Looking fearlessly about,
Ye rebuke our manhood’s doubt,
And our childhood’s faith renew;
So that we, with old age nigh,
Seeing you alive and well
Out of winter’s crucible,
Hearing you, from graveyard crept,
Tell us that ye only slept—
Think we die not, though we die.
Thus ye die not, though ye die—
Only yield your being up,
Like a nectar-holding cup:
Deaf, ye give to them that hear,
With a greatness lovely-dear;
Blind, ye give to them that see—
Poor, but bounteous royally.
Lowly servants to the higher,
Burning upwards in the fire
Of Nature’s endless sacrifice,
In great Life’s ascent ye rise,
Leave the lowly earth behind,
Pass into the human mind,
Pass with it up into God,
Whence ye came though through the clod—
Pass, and find yourselves at home
Where but life can go and come;
Where all life is in its nest,
At loving one with holy Best;—
Who knows?—with shadowy, dawning sense
Of a past, age-long somnolence!
Professor Noctutus
Nobody knows the world but me.
The rest go to bed; I sit up and see.
I’m a better observer than any of you all,
For I never look out till the twilight fall,
And never then without green glasses,
And that is how my wisdom passes.
I never think, for that is not fit:
I observe. I have seen the white moon sit
On her nest, the sea, like a fluffy owl,
Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl!
When the oysters gape—you may make a note—
She drops a pearl into every throat.
I can see the wind: can you do that?
I see the dreams he has in his hat,
I see him shaking them out as he goes,
I see them rush in at man’s snoring nose.
Ten thousand things you could not think,
I can write down plain with pen and ink!
You know that I know; therefore pull off your hat,
Whether round and tall, or square and flat:
You cannot do better than trust in me;
You may shut your eyes in fact—I see!
Lifelong I will lead you, and then, like the owl,
I will bury you nicely with my spade and showl.
Bird-Songs
I will sing a song,
Said the owl.
You sing a song, sing-song
Ugly fowl!
What will you sing about,
Night in and day
