Classic Poem

Behind the purple mountains lies a lake,
Steadfast thro' storm and sunshine in its place;
Asleep 'neath changing skies, its waters make
A mirror for the tempest's thunder-face;
Thence — singing songs of glee,
Fluttering to my cottage by the sea,
By bosky glen and grove,
Past the lone shepherd, moveless as the rock
Whence stretch'd at length he views his scatter'd flock, —
Cometh the little River that I love.

To-day I'll bid farewell to books,
And by the River loved so well,
Thro' ferny haunts and flowery nooks,
Thro' stony glen and woody dell,
The rainy river-path I'll take,
Till by the silent-sleeping lake
I hear the shepherd's bell.
The summer bleats from every rocky height,
The bluebell banks are dim with dewy light,
The heavens are clear as infants' eyes above;
This is no day — you, little River, know it! —
For sage or poet
To localise his love.
In rippling cadence, calm and slow,
Sing, little River, as I go,
Songs of the mountains whence you flow!

The grassy banks are wet with dew that flashes
Silverly on the Naiad-river's lashes —
The Naiad-river, bright with sunken suns,
Who murmureth as she runs.
Yonder the silver-bellied salmon splashes
Within the spreading circle of blue shade
That his own leaps have made:
And here I stoop, and pluck with tender care
A lily from the Naiad's sedgy hair.
And curling softly over pebble,
Weaving soft waves o'er yellow sands,
Singing her song in tinkling treble,
The mountain Lady thro' the farmer's lands
Slides to the sea, with harvest-giving hands.

Here freckled cowslips bloom unsought,
Like yellow jewels on her light green train;
And yonder, dark with dreaming of the rain,
Grows the wood-violet like a lowly thought.
Lightly the mountain Lady dances down,
Dressed maidenly in many a woodland gem; —
Lo, even where the footprint of the clown
Has bruised her raiment-hem,
Crimson-tipp'd daisies make a diadem.

The little River is the fittest singer
To sound the praises of a day so fair.
The dews, suck'd up thro' pores of sunshine, linger
As silver cloudlets in mid-air;
And over all the sunshine throws
Its golden glamour of repose.
The Silence listens, in a dream,
To hear the ploughman urge his reeling team,
The trout, that flashes with a sudden gleam,
And musical motions heaved by hills that bound
The slumberous vales around.
I loiter onward slowly, and the whole
Sweet joy is in my happy fancies drowned.
The sunshine meets the music. Sight and sound
Are wedded by the Soul.
— Sing, little River, this sweet morn,
Songs of the hills where thou wert born!
For, suddenly, mine eyes perceive
The purple hills that touch the sky:
Familiar with the stars of eve,
Against the pale blue West they lie,
Netted in mists of azure air,
With thread-like cataracts here and there.
Oh hark! Oh hark!
The shepherd shouts, and answering sheepdogs bark;
And voices, startling Echo from her sleep,
Are blown from steep to steep.

At yonder falls, the trembling mountain Lady
Clings to the bramble high above me lying,
With veil of foam behind her swift feet flying,
And a lorn terror in her lifted voice,
Ere springing to the rush-friezed basin shady,
That boils below with noise.
Then, whirling dizzily for a moment's space,
She lets the sun flash brightly on her face,
And lightly laughs at her own terror past,
And floateth onward fast!

Thus wandering onward, ankle-deep in grass,
Scaring the cumbrous black cock as I pass,
I came upon two shepherd boys, who wade
For coolness in the limpid waves,
And with their shade
Startle the troutling from its shallow caves.

Let me lie down upon the bank, and drink!
The minnows at the brim, with bellies white
Upturned in specks of silvery light,
Flash from me in a shower, and sink.
Below, the blue skies wink
Thro' heated golden air — a clear abyss
Of azure, with a solitary bird
Steadfastly winging thro' the depths unstirred.
The brain turns dizzy with its bliss;
And I would plunge into the chasms cool,
And float to yonder cloud of fleecy wool,
That floats below me, as I kiss
The mountain Lady's lips with thirsty mouth.
What would parch'd Dives give amid his drouth
For kisses such as this?

Sing, little River, while I rest,
Songs of your hidden mountain nest,
And of the blue sky in your breast!

The landscape darkens slowly
With mountain shadows; when I wander on,
The tremulous gladness of the heat seems gone,
And a cool awe spreads round me, sweet and holy, —
A tender, sober-suited melancholy.
The path rough feet have made me winds away
O'er fenny meadows to the white highway,
Where the big waggon clatters with its load,
And pushing onward, to the ankles wet
In swards as soft as silken sarcenet,
I gain the dusty road.

The air is hotter here. The bee booms by
With honey-laden thigh,
Doubling the heat with sounds akin to heat;
And like a floating flower the butterfly
Swims upward, downward, till its feet
Clin to the hedgerows white and sweet.
A black duck rises clumsily with a cry,
And the dim lake is nigh.
The road curves upward to a dusty rise,
Where fall the sunbeams flake on flake;
And turning at the curve, mine eyes
Fall sudden on the silent lake,
Asleep 'neath hyacinthine skies.

Sing, little River, in your mirth,
Sing to thyself for joy the earth
Is smiling on your humble worth;
And sing for joy that earth has given
A place of birth so near to heaven!
Sing, little River, while I climb
These little hills of rock and thyme;
And hear far-off your tinkling chime!
The cataracts burst in foamy sheen;
The hills slope blackly to the water's brim,
And far below I see their shadows dim;
The lake, so closely hemmed between
Their skirts of heather and of grass,
Grows black and cold beneath me as I pass,

The sunlight fades on mossy rocks,
And on the mountain sides the flocks
Are split like streams; — the highway dips
Down, narrowing to the path where lambs
Lay to the udders of their dams
Their soft and pulpy lips.
The hills grow closer; to the right
The path sweeps round a shadowy bay,
Upon whose slated fringes, white
And crested wavelets play.
All else is still. But list, oh list!
Hidden by boulders and by mist,
A shepherd whistles in his fist;
From height to height the far sheep bleat
In answering iteration sweet.
Sound, seeking Silence, bends above her,
Within some haunted mountain grot;
Kisses her, like a trembling lover —
So that she stirs in sleep, but wakens not!

Along this rock I 'll lie,
With face turn d upward to the sky.
A dreamy numbness glows within my brain —
It is not joy and is not pain —
'Tis like the solemn, sweet imaginings
That cast a shade on Music's golden wings.
With face turned upward to the sun,
I lie as indolent as one
Who, in a vision sweet, perceives
Spirits thro' mists of lotus leaves;
And now and then small shadows move
Across me, cast by clouds so small
Mine eyes perceive them scarce at all
In the unsullied blue above.
I hear the streams that burst and fall,
The straggling shepherd's frequent call,
The kine low bleating as they pass,
The dark lake stirring with the breeze,
The melancholy hum of bees,
The very murmur of the grass.