An April Day

The lark sung loud; the music at his heart
Had call'd him early — upward straight he went,
And bore in nature's quire the merriest part,
As to the lake's broad shore my steps I bent;
The waterflies with glancing motion drove
Their dimpling eddies in among the blooms
Shed by the flowering poplars from above;
While, overhead, the rooks, on sable plumes,
Floated and dipt about the gleaming haze
Of April, crost anon by April glooms,
As is the fashion of her changeful days;
When, what the rain-cloud blots, the sun relumes
O' the instant, and the shifting landscape shows
Each change, and, like a tide, the distance comes and goes!