Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/43

With a low and inward voice
To itself it doth rejoice;
And the little sedge-birds sit
In the reeds and hark to it;
And from banks of mossy green,
Flowers that love it droop and lean,
As it lingers, winds, and wanders
Under willow trees and alders—
As it lingers, winds and flows
'Neath the lilies' driven snows,
And a yellow dragon-fly
Crosses it incessantly.
—Ever may the streamlet be
Clear as snow, untainted, free!
And the vale,—may no men win it
From the blackbird and the linnet,
And the thrush that harbour in it!

Now the song-birds throng the bushes,
And the water-birds the rushes;
And thro' golden haze, the bee
Darting, seeks her treasury
With what nectar she could win
From the tired flowers folding in;
And the landscape all alight
With rose and amber, depth and height,
Burns beneath the fiery sky;
And the radiant waters vie
With heaven's splendour, where the sun,
Now his western goal is won,
Stands upon the molten wave,
Magician-like, as if he gave