| |
| NOW Morning from her orient chamber came, | |
| And her first footsteps touch’d a verdant hill; | |
| Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame, | |
| Silv’ring the untainted gushes of its rill; | |
| Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill, | 5 |
| And after parting beds of simple flowers, | |
| By many streams a little lake did fill, | |
| Which round its marge reflected woven bowers, | |
| And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers. | |
| |
| There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright | 10 |
| Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below; | |
| Whose silken fins, and golden scales’ light | |
| Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow: | |
| There saw the swan his neck of arched snow, | |
| And oar’d himself along with majesty; | 15 |
| Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show | |
| Beneath the waves like Afric’s ebony, | |
| And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously. | |
| |
| Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle | |
| That in that fairest lake had placed been, | 20 |
| I could e’en Dido of her grief beguile; | |
| Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen: | |
| For sure so fair a place was never seen, | |
| Of all that ever charm’d romantic eye: | |
| It seem’d an emerald in the silver sheen | 25 |
| Of the bright waters; or as when on high, | |
| Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the coerulean sky. | |
| |
| And all around it dipp’d luxuriously | |
| Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide, | |
| Which, as it were in gentle amity, | 30 |
| Rippled delighted up the flowery side; | |
| As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried, | |
| Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem! | |
| Haply it was the workings of its pride, | |
| In strife to throw upon the shore a gem | 35 |
| Outvieing all the buds in Flora’s diadem. | |
| |
| See Notes. |
| |
