Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX.

In the beautiful greenwood's charmed light,

And down through the meadows wide and bright,

Deep in the silence, and smooth in the gleam,

For ever and ever flows the stream.

Where the mandrakes grow, and the pale, thin grass

The airy scarf of the woodland weaves,

By dim, enchanted paths I pass,

Crushing the twigs and the last year's leaves.

Over the wave, by the crystal brink,

A kingfisher sits on a low, dead limb:

He is always sitting there, I think,-

And another, within the crystal brink,

Is always looking up at him.

I know where an old tree leans across

From bank to bank, an ancient tree,

Quaintly cushioned with curious moss,

A bridge for the cool wood-nymphs and me:

Half seen they flit, while here I sit

By the magical water, watching it.

In its bosom swims the fair phantasm

Of a subterraneous azure chasm,

So soft and clear, you would say the stream

Was dreaming of heaven a visible dream.

Where the noontide basks, and its warm rays tint

The nettles and clover and scented mint,

And the crinkled airs, that curl and quiver,

Drop their wreaths in the mirroring river,-

Under the shaggy magnificent drapery

Of many a wild-woven native grapery,-

By ivy-bowers, and banks of violets,

And golden hillocks, and emerald islets,

Along its sinuous shining bed,

In sheets of splendor it lies outspread.

In the twilight stillness and solitude

Of green caves roofed by the brooding wood,

Where the woodbine swings, and beneath the trailing

Sprays of the queenly elm-tree sailing,-

By ribbed and wave-worn ledges shimmering,

Gilding the rocks with a rippled glimmering,

All pictured over in shade and sun,

The wavering silken waters run.

Upon this mossy trunk I sit,

Over the river, watching it.

A shadowed face peers up at me;

And another tree in the chasm I see,

Clinging above the abyss it spans;

The broad boughs curve their spreading fans,

From side to side, in the nether air;

And phantom birds in the phantom branches

Mimic the birds above; and there,

Oh I far below, solemn and slow,

The white clouds roll the crumbling snow

Of ever-pendulous avalanches,

Till the brain grows giddy, gazing through

Their wild, wide rifts of bottomless blue.