Sweet Birds, I Come

"My mind has thunderstorms,      That brood for heavy hours:     Until they rain me words,      My thoughts are drooping flowers     And sulkin"

"Thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not romp,      Let's grimly kiss with bated breath;     As quietly and solemnly      As Life when it is kissin"

"Those poor, heartbroken wretches, doomed      To hear at night the clocks' hard tones;     They have no beds to warm their limbs,      But with"

"Oh, sweet content, that turns the labourer's sweat      To tears of joy, and shines the roughest face;     How often have I sought you high and"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"