Woodland Waters

Through leaves of the nodding trees, Where blossoms sway in the breeze, Pink bag-pipes made for the bees, Whose slogan is droning and drawling: Where the columbine scatters its bells, And the wild bleeding-heart its shells, O’er mosses and rocks of the dells The brook of the forest is falling.

You can hear it under the hill When the wind in the wood is still, And, strokes of a fairy drill, Sounds the bill of the yellow-hammer: By the solomon’s-seal it slips, Cohosh and the grass that drips-- Like the words of an Undine’s lips, Is the sound of its falls that stammer.

I lie in the woods: and the scent Of the honeysuckle is blent With the sound: and a Sultan’s tent Is my dream, with the East enmeshéd:-- A slave-girl sings; and I hear The languor of lute-strings near, And a dancing-girl of Cashmere In the harem of good Er Reshid.

From ripples of Irak lace She flashes the amorous grace Of her naked limbs and her face, While her golden anklets tinkle: Then over mosaic floors Open seraglio doors Of cedar: by twos, by fours,-- Like stars that tremble and twinkle,--

While the dulcimers sing, unseen, The handmaids come of the Queen ’Neath silvern lamps, one sheen Of jewels of Afrite treasure: And I see the Arabia rise Of the Nights that were rich and wise, Beautiful, dark, in the eyes Of Zubeideh, the Queen of Pleasure.