I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling, And here and there a foamy flake And draw them all along, and flow 1 steal by lawns and grassy plots; I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows, I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I loiter round my cresses; And out again I curve and flow For men may come and men may go, ALFRED TENNYSON. The Question. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, And gentle odors led my steps astray, Mixed with the sound of waters murmuring, Along a shelvy bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in a dream. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies-those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets, Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth, Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. And in the warm hedge grew bush-eglantine, Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colored May; And cherry-blossoms, and white caps whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; And flowers azure, black and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge, There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white; And starry river buds among the sedge And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. |