Six Songs , opus 6

Upon the wintry trees
A few dead leaves are hung;
They rattle in the breeze
The mournful boughs among.

As in December old
The earth is dark and drear;
No newer buds unfold --
Yet Spring, the Spring is here.

And in the grass there grows
A fragrant violet;
No other flower knows,
No one hath told them yet.

Nor yet the bees forsake
The threshold of their home;
No voice hath bid them wake,
Hath cried "The Spring is come!"

The sky is dark and low,
Unswept by swallow wings.
But soft the South doth blow,
Sudden the blackbird sings.

On my flute with tips of jade
Sweet the music that I played,
Sang my song to men, but they
From my singing turned away.

So I held my flute on high,
To the Sages in the Sky
Played and sang, and they entranced
On the floor of Heaven danced.

Men now listened to my song,
Bade me sing it all day long,
Praised my music, as I played
On my flute with tips of jade. 

  When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead --
  When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
  When the lute is broken,  
Sweet tones are remembered not;
  When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

  As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute, 
  The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute: --
  No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
  Or the mournful surges 
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

  When hearts have once mingled
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
  The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed. 
  O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
  Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

  Its passions will rock thee 
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
  Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
  From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home 
  Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.

Music, when soft voices die,	
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Up in the blossoming Cherry Tree.
A garden in the air I see,
With flowers gay; and shining through
The April heaven, soft and blue.
And clouds, than drifted snow more bright,
Float ever o'er that garden white. 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.