The world is stirring, many voices blend,
     The English are at work in field and way;
All the good finches on their wives attend,
     And emmets their new towns lay out in clay;
Only the cuckoo-bird only doth say
Her beautiful name, and float at large all day.

Everywhere ring sweet clamours, chirrupping,
     Chirping, that comes before the grasshopper;
The wide woods, flurried with the pulse of spring,
     Shake out their wrinkled buds with tremor and stir;
Small noises, little cries, the ear receives
Light as a rustling foot on last year’s leaves.

All in deep dew the satisfied deep grass
  Looking straight upward stars itself with white,
Like ships in heaven full-sailed do long clouds pass
  Slowly o’er this great peace, and wide sweet light. 
While through moist meads draws down yon rushy mere
  Influent waters, sobbing, shining, clear.

Almost is rapture poignant; somewhat ails
  The heart and mocks the morning; somewhat sighs,
And those sweet foreigners, the nightingales,
  Made restless with their love, pay down its price,
Even the pain; then all the story unfold
Over and over again—­yet ’t is not told.

The mystery of the world whose name is life
  (One of the names of God) all-conquering wends
And works for aye with rest and cold at strife. 
  Its pedigree goes up to Him and ends. 
For it the lucent heavens are clear o’erhead,
And all the meads are made its natal bed.

Dear is the light, and eye-sight ever sweet,
  What see they all fair lower things that nurse,
No wonder, and no doubt?  Truly their meat,
Their kind, their field, their foes; man’s eyes are more;
  Sight is man’s having of the universe,
His pass to the majestical far shore.

But it is not enough, ah! not enough
  To look upon it and be held away,
And to be sure that, while we tread the rough,
  Remote, dull paths of this dull world, no ray
Shall pierce to us from the inner soul of things,
Nor voice thrill out from its deep master-strings.

’To show the skies, and tether to the sod! 
  A daunting gift!’ we mourn in our long strife. 
And God is more than all our thought of God;
  E’en life itself more than our thought of life,
And that is all we know—­and it is noon,
Our little day will soon be done—­how soon!

O let us to ourselves be dutiful: 
  We are not satisfied, we have wanted all,
Not alone beauty, but that Beautiful;
  A lifted veil, an answering mystical. 
Ever men plead, and plain, admire, implore,
’Why gavest Thou so much—­and yet—­not more?

We are but let to look, and Hope is weighed.’ 
  Yet, say the Indian words of sweet renown,
’The doomed tree withholdeth not her shade
  From him that bears the axe to cut her down;’
Is hope cut down, dead, doomed, all is vain: 
The third day dawns, she too has risen again