These flowery branches round us interlace;
The ground is hollowed like a mossy nest:
Who talks of fame while the religious Spring
Offers the incense of her blossoming?

There was a Poet, Madam, once (said he),
Who, while he walked at sundown in a lane,
Took to his heart the hope that destiny
Had singled him this guerdon to obtain,
That by the power of his sweet minstrelsy
Some hearts for truth and goodness he should gain.
And charm some grovellers to uplift their eyes
And suddenly wax conscious of the skies.

"Master, good e'en to ye!" a woodman said,
Who the low hedge was trimming with his shears.
"This hour is fine"--the Poet bowed his head.
"More fine," he thought, "O friend! to me appears
The sunset than to you; finer the spread
Of orange lustre through these azure spheres,
Where little clouds lie still, like flocks of sheep,
Or vessels sailing in God's other deep.

"O finer far! What work so high as mine,
Interpreter betwixt the world and man,
Nature's ungathered pearls to set and shrine,
The mystery she wraps her in to scan;
Her unsyllabic voices to combine,
And serve her with such love as poets can;
With mortal words, her chant of praise to bind,