Ii

Down precipices of the dawn The rivers of the day are drawn, The soundless torrents, free and far, Of gold that deluge every star. There is a sound of brooks and wings That fills the woods with carollings; And, dashed on moss and flow'r and fern, And leaves, that quiver, breathe and burn, Rose-radiance smites the solitudes, The dew-drenched hills, the dripping woods, That twitter as with canticles Of shade and light; and wind, that smells Of flowers, and buds, and boisterous bees, Delirious honey, and wet trees.-- Through briers that trip them, one by one, With swinging pails, that take the sun, A troop of girls comes--berriers, Whose bare feet glitter where they pass Through dewdrop-trembling tufts of grass. And, oh! their laughter and their cheers Wake Echo 'mid her shrubby rocks Who, answering, from her mountain mocks With rapid fairy horns; as if Each mossy vale and weedy cliff Had its imperial Oberon, Who, seeking his Titania, hid In coverts caverned from the sun, In kingly wrath had called and chid.

Cloud-feathers, oozing orange light, Make rich the Indian locks of night; Her dusky waist with sultry gold Girdled and buckled fold on fold. One star. A sound of bleating flocks. Great shadows stretched along the rocks, Like giant curses overthrown By some Arthurian champion. Soft-swimming sorceries of mist That streak blue glens with amethyst. And, tinkling in the clover dells, The twilight sound of cattle-bells. And where the marsh in reed and grass Burns, angry as a shattered glass, The flies make golden blurs, that shine Like drops of amber-scattered wine Spun high by reeling Bacchanals, When Bacchus wreathes his curling hair With vine-leaves, and from every lair His worshippers around him calls. They come, they come, a happy throng, The berriers with gibe and song; Their pails brimmed black to tin-bright eaves With luscious fruit, kept cool with leaves Of aromatic sassafras; 'Twixt which some sparkling berry slips, Like laughter, from the purple mass, Wine-swollen as Silenus' lips.