Nature More than Science

I HAVE a thousand thousand lays,
Compact of myriad myriad words,
And so can sing a million ways,

Can play at pleasure on the chords
Of tuned harp or heart;
Yet is there one sweet song

For which in vain I pine and long;
I cannot reach that song, with all my minstrel-art.
A shepherd sits within a dell,

O'ercanopied from rain and heat:
A shallow but pellucid well
Doth ever bubble at his feet.
His pipe is but a leaf,

Yet there, above that stream,
He plays and plays, as in a dream,
One air that steals away the senses like a thief.

A simple air it seems in truth,
And who begins will end it soon;
Yet, when that hidden shepherd-youth

So pours it in the ear of Noon,
Tears flow from those anear.
All songs of yours and mine

Condensed in one were less divine
Than that sweet air to sing, that sweet, sweet air
to hear!

'Twas yesternoon he played it last;
The hummings of a hundred bees
"Were in mine ears, yet, as I passed,

I heard him through the myrtle trees.
Stretched all along he lay,
'Mid foliage half-decayed,

His lambs were feeding while he played,
And sleepily wore on the stilly Summer-day.