Classic Poem

How merry a life the little River leads,
Piping a vagrant ditty free from care;
Now rippling as it rustles through the reeds
And broad-leaved lilies sailing here and there,
Now lying level with the clover meads
And musing in a mist of golden air!
Bearing a pastoral peace where'er it goes,
Narrow'd to mirth or broaden'd to repose:
Through copsy villages and tiny towns,
By belts of woodland singing sweet,
Pausing where sun and shadow meet
Without the darkness of the breezy downs,
Bickering o'er the keystone as it flows
'Neath mossy bridges arch'd like maiden feet;
And slowly widening as it seaward grows,
Because its summer mission grows complete.

Run seaward, for I follow!
Let me cross
My garden-threshold ankle-deep in moss.
Sweet Stream, your heart is beating and I hear it,
As conscious of its pleasure as a girl's:
O little River, whom I love so well,
Is it with something of a human spirit
You twine those lilies in your sedgy curls?
Take up the inner voice we both inherit,
O little River of my love, and tell!

The rain has crawled from yonder mountain-side,
And passing, left its footprints far and wide,
The path I follow winds by cliff and scar,
Purple and dark and trodden as I pass,
The foxglove droops, the crocus lifts its star,
And bluebells brighten in the dowy grass.
Over deep pools the willow hangs its hair,
Dwarf birches show their sodden roots and shake
Their melting jewels on my bending brows,
The mottled mavis pipes among their boughs
For joy of five unborn in yonder brake.
The River, narrow'd to a woody glen,
Leaps trembling o'er a little rocky ledge,
Then broadens forward into calm again
Where the gray moor-hen builds her nest of sedge;
Caught in the dark those willow-trees have made,
Lipping the yellow lilies o'er and o'er,
It flutters twenty feet along the shade,
Halts at the sunshine like a thing afraid,
And turns to kiss the lilies yet once more.

Those little falls are lurid with the rain
That ere the day is done will come again.
The River falters swoll'n and brown,
Falters, falters, as it nears them,
Shuddering back as if it fears them,
Falters, falters, falters, falters,
Then dizzily rushes down.

But all is calm again, the little River
Smiles on and sings the song it sings for ever.
Here at the curve it passes tilth and farm,
And faintly flowing onward to the mill
It stretches out a little azure arm
To aid the miller, aiding with a will,
And singing, singing still.
Sweet household sounds come sudden on mine ear:
The waggons rumbling in the rutted lanes,
The village clock and trumpet Chanticleer,
The flocks and cattle on the marish-plains,
With shouts of urchins ringing loud and clear;
And lo! a Village, breathing breath that curls
In foam-white wreaths through ancient sycamores!
A hum of looms comes through the cottage doors.
I stumble on a group of country girls
Faring afield thro' deep and dewy grass;
Small urchins rush from sanded kitchen-floors
To stare with mouths wide open as I pass.

But yonder cottage where the woodbine grows,
Half cottage and half inn, a pretty place,
Tempts ramblers with the country cheer it shows;
Entering, I rob the threshold of a rose,
And meet the welcome on a mother's face.
Come, let me sit. The scent of garden flowers
Flits through the casement of the sanded room,
Hitting the sense with thoughts of summer hours
When half the world has budded into bloom.
Is that the faded picture of our host
Shading the plate of pansies where I sit —
That lean-limb'd stripling straighter than a post,
Clad in a coat that seems a sorry fit?
I drink his health in this his own October,
That bites so sharply on the thirsty tongue;
And here he comes, but not so slim and sober
As in the days when Love and he were young.
" Hostess!" I fill again and pledge the glory
Of that stout angel answering to my call,
Who changed him from the shadow on the wall
Into the rosy tun of sack before me!

Again I follow where the river wanders.
The landscape billows into hills of thyme:
Over the purple heights I slowly climb;
Till in a glen of birchen-trees and boulders
I halt, beneath a heathery mountain ridge
Clothed on with amber cloud from head to shoulders.

I wander on and gain a mossy bridge,
And watch the angling of a shepherd boy;
Below the little river glimmers by,
Touched with a troubled sense of pain or joy
By some new life at work in earth and sky.
The marshes there steam mist from hidden springs,
Deep-hidden in the marsh the bittern calls,
And yonder swallow oils its ebon wings
While fluttering o'er the falls.
Below my feet the little budding flower
Thrusts up dark leaves to feel the coming shower:
I'll trust these weather-signs and creep apart
Beneath this crag until the rain depart, —
'Twill come again and go within an hour.

The moist soft wind has died and fallen now,
The air is hot and hush'd on flower and tree,
The leaves are troubled into sighs, and see!
There falls a heavy drop upon my brow.
The cloudy standard is above unfurl'd;
The aspen fingers of the blinded Rain
Feel for the summer eyelids of the world
That she may kiss them open once again.
Darker and darker, till with one accord
The clouds pour forth their hoard in gusts of power,
A sunbeam rends their bowels like a sword
And frees the costly shower!

Fluttering around me and before me,
Stretched like a mantle o'er me,
The rushing shadows blind the earth and skies,
Dazzling a darkness on my gazing eyes
With troublous gleams of radiance, like the bright
Pigments of gold that flutter in our sight,
When with shut eyes we strain
Our aching vision back upon the brain.

Across the skies and o'er the plain
Fast fly the swollen shadows of the Rain;
Blown duskly by,
From hill to hill they fly,
O'er solitary streams and windy downs.
O'er trembling villages and darkened towns!
I crouch beneath the crag and watch the mist
Move on the skirts of yonder mountains gray
Until it bubbles into amethyst
And softly melts away.
The thyme-bells catch their drops of silver dew,
And quake beneath the load;
The squadron'd pines that shade the splashing road
Are glimmering with a million jewels too.
And hark! the Spirit of the Rain
Sings to the Summer sleeping,
Pressing a dark damp face against the plain,
And pausing, pausing, not for pain,
Pausing, pausing, ere the low refrain,
Because she cannot sing for weeping.
She flings her cold dim arms about the Earth,
That soon shall wear the blessing she has given,
Then brightens thro' her tears in sunny mirth
And flutters back to heaven.

A fallen sunbeam trembles at my feet,
And as I sally forth the linnets frame
Their throats to answer yonder laverock sweet.
The jewell'd trees flash out in emerald flame.
The bright drops fall with throbs of peaceful sound,
And melt in circles on the shallow pools
That glisten on the ground.
Last, Iris issues from her cloudy shrine,
Trembling alone in heaven where she rules,
And arching down to kiss with kisses sweet
The bright green world that flashes at her feet,
Runs liquid through her many hues divine.