Apollo and the Graces
Written to the Tune of the Air in ‘Don Giovanni’
APOLLO Which of the fairest three
Today will ride with me?
My steeds are all pawing at the threshold of the morn:
Which of the fairest three
Today will ride with me
Across the gold Autumn’s whole Kingdom of corn?
THE GRACES all answer I will, I - I - I -
O O young Apollo let me fly
Along with thee,
I I will - I, I, I,
The many wonders see
I — I — I — I — And thy lyre shall never have a slackened string
I, I, I, I,
Thro the golden day will sing.
Daisy’s Song
I
The sun, with his great eye,
Sees not so much as I;
And the moon, all silver-proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.
II
And O the spring - the spring!
I lead the life of a king!
Couch’d in the teeming grass,
I spy each pretty lass.
III
I look where no one dares,
And I stare where no one stares,
And when the night is nigh,
Lambs bleat my lullaby.
Sharing Eve’s Apple
I
O blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile the blushing while,
Then maidenheads are going.
II
There’s a blush for won’t, and a blush for shan’t,
And a blush for having done it:
There’s a blush for thought and a blush for naught,
And a blush for just begun it.
III
O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
For it sounds of Eve’s sweet pippin;
By these loosen’d lips you have tasted the pips
And fought in an amorous nipping.
IV
Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
For it only will last our youth out,
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
We have not one sweet tooth out.
V
There’s a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no,
And a sigh for I can’t bear it!
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!
Epistles
“Among the rest a shepheard (though but young
Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill
His few yeeres could, began to fit his quill.”
Britannia’s Pastorals. — BROWNE.
On the Grasshopper and Cricket
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s — he takes the lead
In summer luxury, — he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
December 30, 1816.
The Poet - A Fragment
Where’s the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know
