One have I marked, the happiest guest In all this covert of the blest: 10 Hail to Thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, Linnet! in thy green array, Presiding Spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; 15 And this is thy dominion. While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, Make all one band of paramours, Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, Art sole in thy employment: 20 A Life, a Presence like the Air, Scattering thy gladness without care, Too blest with any one to pair; Thyself thy own enjoyment. Amid [2] yon tuft of hazel trees, 25 That twinkle to the gusty breeze, Behold him perched in ecstacies, Yet seeming still to hover; There! where the flutter of his wings Upon his back and body flings 30 Shadows and sunny glimmerings, That cover him all over. My dazzled sight he oft deceives, A Brother of the dancing leaves; Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves 35 Pours forth his song in gushes; [3] As if by that exulting strain He mocked and treated with disdain The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes. [4] 40 * * * * * VARIANTS ON THE TEXT [Variant 1: 1827. The May is come again:--how sweet To sit upon my Orchard-seat! And Birds and Flowers once more to greet, My last year's Friends together: My thoughts they all by turns employ; A whispering Leaf is now my joy, And then a Bird will be the toy That doth my fancy tether. 1807. And Flowers and Birds once more to greet, 1815. The text of 1815 is otherwise identical with that of 1827.] [Variant 2: 1845. Upon ... 1807.] [Variant 3: 1845. While thus before my eyes he gleams, A Brother of the Leaves he seems; When in a moment forth he teems His little song in gushes: 1807. My sight he dazzles, half deceives, A Bird so like the dancing Leaves; Then flits, and from the Cottage eaves Pours forth his song in gushes; 1827. My dazzled sight the Bird deceives, A Brother of the dancing Leaves; 1832. The Bird my dazzled sight deceives, 1840. The Bird my dazzling sight deceives C.] [Variant 4: 1827. As if it pleas'd him to disdain And mock the Form which he did feign, While he was dancing with the train Of Leaves among the bushes. 1807. The voiceless Form he chose to feign, 1820.] Of all Wordsworth's poems this is the one most distinctively associated with the Orchard, at Town-end, Grasmere. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal under date May 28th, 1802: