The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series/The Poet's Song

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

LORD TENNYSON.

THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
⁠He pass'd by the town and out of the street,
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
⁠And waves of shadow went over the wheat,
And he sat him down in a lonely place,
⁠And chanted a melody loud and sweet,

That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,
⁠And the lark drop down at his feet.

The swallow stopt as he hunted the fly,
⁠The snake slipt under a spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
⁠And stared, with his foot on the prey,
And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs,
⁠But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
⁠When the years have died away."