Classic Poem

ME Sylphide, Lady of the Lake,
Found in her sacred place,
And bound me for my trespass' sake
Beneath the mountain base,
And bade me ply my pencil craft; and paint her face.

And first the Lady made me show
Her upper fountains bright,
That leapt like meteors of the snow
Sheer o'er the dizzy height,
She bade give me their coloured spray, the leap, the light.

Then out she spread a sunny sheen
Beneath the cataract's roar,
With surfaces of blue and green,
And opal by the shore;
And in the calm the torrent white I saw no more.

But while I lingered o'er her grace
She fetched a sudden breeze,
And ridged with gold her furrowing face,
And — " Quick! the moment seize!
This calm befits not art," she said, " whims better please."

So every moment changed her moods
By motions strange and new:
The peaks, whose burning solitudes
Breasted the freckless blue,
Eternal granite, took fresh forms even while I drew.

Nor could the eye mid transient things
The central image keep:
But lighted upon glittering springs,
The cloud, the moth, the sheep,
Whose bells in the high mountain walks persuaded sleep.

Then vexed I cast my brush aside,
And let my fancy range:
But half she smiled and half she sighed
And said — " Nay, else 'twere strange,
Like mates with like: my like is not; my name is Change.

" Then leave me to my moths and flowers;
These are my brief device
To hush the footsteps of the hours;
Like you I pay the price,
Even I, for my long summer days, with snow and ice.

" Mock me not with the painter's art,
But now in this your prime
The thoughts I move within your heart,
Go! cast them into rhyme:
And this a memory among men shall vanquish Time."