It is the loveliest day that we have had
This lovely month, sparkling and full of cheer;
The sun has a sharp eye, yet kind and glad:
Colours are doubly bright: all things appear
Strong outlined in the spacious atmosphere;
And through the lofty air the white clouds go
As on their way to some celestial show.

The banks of Avon must look well to-day;
Autumn is there in all his glory and treasure;
The river must run bright; the ripples play
Their crispest tunes to boats that rock at leisure;
The ladies are abroad with cheeks of pleasure;
And the rich orchards, in their sunniest robes
Are pouting thick with all their winy globes.

And why must I be thinking of the pride
Of distant bowers, as if I had no nest
To sing in here, though by the houses' side?
As if I could not in a minute, rest
In leafy fields, rural, and self-possest,
Having, on one side, Hampstead for my looks,
On t'other, London with its wealth of books?

It is not that I envy Autumn there,
Nor the sweet river, though my fields have none;
Nor yet that in its all-productive air
Was born Humanity's divinest son,
That sprightliest, gravest, wisest, kindest one—
Shakspeare: nor yet,—oh no,—that here I miss
Souls, not unworthy to be named with his:

No; but it is that on this very day,
And upon Shakspeare's stream, a little lower,
Where, drunk with Delphic air, it comes away
Dancing in perfume by the Peary Shore,
Was born the lass that I love more and more;
A fruit as fine as in the Hesperian store,
Smooth, roundly smiling, noble to the core;
An eye for art; a nature, that of yore
Mothers and daughters, wives and sisters wore,
When in the golden age, one tune they bore;
M ARIAN ,—who makes my heart and very rhymes run o'er.