Poems (Commelin)/Undine

by Anna Olcott Commelin

UNDINE.

In all romance's fairy land
No brighter form, I ween,
Created is by poet's wand,
Than thine, oh, sweet Undine,
With hair of gold, with airy grace,
With girlish form and winsome face.

Thou'rt kin to every living thing
By nature given birth,
To birds with songs and caroling,
And varying shapes of earth;
Thyself, a form all joy and light,
Art near to wood and water sprite.

And though the poet's fond ideal
Has given thee living form,
Thou art a type of all things real
In life aglow and warm.
Each human form, each human heart
In nature's all is but a part,
And kin to all things here are we,
To bird and plant and fawn and tree.

And like the fawn or water-sprite
Or idle wind that blows,
With merry prank and spirits light
Thy happiness o'erflows;
At one with nature's every mood
Thou findest friends in stream and wood.

But when a soul in thee is born
With care and thought opprest,
Then love and life mysterious dawn
With sadness and unrest;
And kin to bird and fawn, I ween,
Akin thou art to forms unseen.