II.

'Tis a woodland enchanted!
I am writing no fiction ;

And this fount, its sole daughter,
To the woodland was granted
To pour holy water
And win benediction ;
In summer-noon flushes,
When all the wood hushes,
Blue dragon-flies knitting
To and fro in the sun,
With sidelong jerk flitting
Sink down on the rushes,
And, motionless sitting,
Hear it bubble and run,
Hear its low inward singing,
With level wings swinging,
On green tasselled rushes,
To dream in the sun.

III.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
The great August noonlight,
Through myriad rifts slanted,
Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles
With flickering gold;

There, in warm August gloaming,
With quick, silent brightenings,
From meadow-lands roaming,
The firefly twinkles

His fitful heat-lightnings ;
There the magical moonlight
With meek, saintly glory
Steeps summit and wold ;

IV.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
When the phebe scarce whistles
Once an hour to his fellow,
And, where red lilies flaunted,
Balloons from the thistles
Tell summer's disasters,
The butterflies yellow,
As caught in an eddy
Of air's silent ocean,
Sink, waver, and steady
O'er goats'-beard and asters,
Like souls of dead flowers,
With aimless emotion
Still lingering unready
To leave their old bowers;
And the fount is no dumber,
But still gleams and flashes,
And gurgles and plashes,
To the measure of summer;
The butterflies hear it,
And spell-bound are holden,
Still balancing near it
O'er the goats'-beard so golden.

V.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
A vast silver willow,
I know not how planted,
(This wood is enchanted,
And full of surprises,)
Stands stemming a billow,
A motionless billow
Of ankle-deep mosses ;

The little fount tinkles Its silver saints'-bells, That no sprite ill-boding May make his abode in Those innocent dells.

In its lupin-leaf setting

Than this water moss-bounded;

But a tiny sand-pillar

From the bottom keeps jetting, And mermaid ne'er sounded

Through the wreaths of a shell,

Down amid crimson dulses

In some cavern of ocean,
A melody sweeter
Than the delicate pulses,
The soft, noiseless metre,
The pause and the swell
Of that musical motion:
I recall it, not see it ;
Could vision be clearer ?
Half I'm fain to draw nearer,
Half tempted to flee it;
The sleeping Past wake not,
Beware!

One forward step take not,
Ah! break not

That quietude rare !
By my step unaffrighted
A thrush hops before it,
And o'er it

A birch hangs delighted,

Still the smooth mirror glances,

Still the amber sand dances,

One look, then away!

O magical glass!

Canst keep in thy bosom
Shades of leaf and of blossom
When summer days pass,

So that when thy wave hardens
It shapes as it pleases,
Unharmed by the breezes,
Its fine hanging gardens?
Hast those in thy keeping,
And canst not uncover,
Enchantedly sleeping,
The old shade of thy lover
It is there! I have found it!
He wakes, the long sleeper!
The pool is grown deeper,
The sand dance is ending,
The white floor sinks, blending
With skies that below me

And a child's face alone

That seems not to know me,
With hair that fades golden
In the heaven-glow round it,
Looks up at my own;

Ah, glimpse through the portal
That leads to the throne,
That

opes the child's olden
Regions Elysian!
Ah, too holy vision
For thy skirts to be holden
By soiled hand of mortal!
It wavers, it scatters,
'T is gone past recalling!
A tear's sudden falling
The magic cup shatters,
Breaks the spell of the waters,
And the sand cone once more,
With a ceaseless renewing,

Its dance is pursuing

On the silvery floor,

O'er and o'er,

With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing.

15

And, looking with awe in the magical

mirror,

I see through my tears,
Half doubtful of seeing,
The face unperverted,
The warm golden being
Of a child of five years;

And spite of the mists and the error,

And the days overcast,

Can feel that I walk undeserted,

But forever attended

By the glad heavens that bended
O'er the innocent past;
Toward fancy or truth

Doth the sweet vision win me?
Dare I think that I cast
In the fountain of youth
The fleeting reflection
Of some bygone perfection
That still lingers in me?