Classic Poem

I.

'T WAS a bland summer's eve, when the forest I trod;
The dew-gems were starring the flowers of the sod,
And " faire mistress moone, " as she rose from the sea,
Shed apart the green leaves of each shadowy tree.

II.

I passed by a brook, where her silvers lay flung,
Among knolls of wild fern it witchingly sung,
While a lone fairy angler with glimmering hand
From the odorous banks waved her delicate wand.

III.

In silence I watched, as with eager intent
O'er the moon-silvered water she gracefully bent,
And plied with green rush-rod, new torn from its bed,
Her line of the thorn-spider's mystical thread.

IV.

A pannier of moss-leaves her shoulders bedecked,
The nest of some bird, which the night winds had wrecked,
Slung round with a tendril of ivy so gay,
And a belt of stream flowers bound her woodland array.

V.

No snow-flake e'er dropt from its cloud on the brook
So gently impelled as her moth-plumaged hook;
The pearl-sided parlet and minnow obeyed
The magical beck of that wandering maid.

VI.

And aye as her rush-rod she waved o'er the rill,
Sweet words floated round her, I treasure them still,
Tho' like a bright moon-cloud resolved into air,
Passed from me, regretted, the vision so faire.