There sucks the bee, for the richest flowers
Are all your own through the summer-hours;
There the proud stag his fair image knows,
Traced on your glass beneath alder-boughs,
And the halcyon's breast, like the skies array'd,
Gleams through the willow-shade.
But the wild sweet tales that with elves and fays
Peopled your banks in the olden days,
And the memory left by departed love
To your antique founts in glen and grove,
And the glory born of the poet's dreams—
These are your charms, bright Streams!
Now is the time of your flowery rites
Gone by with its dances and young delights;
From your marble urns ye have burst away,
From your chapel-cells to the laughing day;
Low lie your altars with moss o'ergrown,
And the woods again are lone.
Yet holy still be your living springs,
Haunts of all gentle and gladsome things!
Holy, to converse with Nature's lore,
That gives the worn spirit its youth once more,
And to silent thoughts of the love divine,
Making the heart a shrine!F. H.
