III

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

      Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

      And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

      Among the river sallows, borne aloft

            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

      Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

      The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

            And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.