Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SPEING. Frost-locked all the winter, Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, What shall make their sap ascend That they may put forth shoots ? Tips of tender green, Leaf, or blade, or sheath; Telling of the hidden life That breaks forth underneath, Life nursed in its grave by Death. Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly, Drips the soaking rain, By fits looks down the waking sun: Young grass springs on the plain; Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees; Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, Swollen with sap put forth their shoots; Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane; Birds sing and pair again. There is no time like Spring, When life's alive hi everything, Before new nestlings sing, Before cleft swallows speed their journey back Along the trackless track— God guides their wing, He spreads their table that they nothing lack,- Before the daisy grows a common flower, Before the sun has power To scorch the world up in his noontide hour. There is no time like Spring, Like Spring that passes by; There is no life like Spring-life born to die,— Piercing the sod, Clothing the uncouth clod, Hatched in the nest, Fledged on the windy bough, Strong on the wing: There is no time like Spring that passes by, Now newly born, and now Hastening to die. THE LAMBS OF GRASMERE, 1860. The upland flocks grew starved and thinned: Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs Whose milkless mothers butted them, Or who were orphaned of their dams. The lambs athirst for mother's milk Filled all the place with piteous sounds : Their mothers' bones made white for miles The pastureless wet pasture grounds. Day after day, night after night, From lamb to lamb the shepherds went, With teapots for the bleating mouths Instead of nature's nouri...