Page:The collected poems, lyrical and narrative, of A. Mary F. Robinson.djvu/113

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The Springs of Fontana

The springs of Fontana well high on the mountain.
Out of the rock of the granite they pour
Twenty or more;
Ripple and runnel and freshet and fountain
Well, happy tears, from the heart of the mountain
Up at Fontana.

See, not a step can we take but a spring
Breaks from the roots of the blond-flower'd chestnuts—
(Look, in the water their long golden breast-knots
Flung in caress!)—from a tuft of the ling.
From a stone, anything,
Up at Fontana.

Twenty or more, and no one of the twenty
Gushes the same ; here the waters abundant
Babble redundant.
Filling the vale with the bruit of their plenty;
Here a mere ripple, a trickle, a scanty
Dew on Fontana.

Surely one noonday the Prophet in heaven
Slept, and the wand of the desert fell—

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