Believe The Thrushes Sung,
And That The Flower-Bells Rung,
That Herbs Exhaled Their Scent,
And Beasts Knew What Was Meant,
The Trees A Welcome Waved,
And Lakes Their Margins Laved,
When Thy Free Mind
To My Retreat Did Wind.
It was a summer eve,
The air did gently heave
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud;
The lightning's silent gleam,
Startling my drowsy dream,
Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.
Still will I strive to be
As if thou wert with me;
Whatever path I take,
It shall be for thy sake,
Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side,
Without a root
To trip thy gentle foot.
I 'll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water-lilies float,
And cardinal flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers.
It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the
mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade
of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for
art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself. The
shallowest still water is unfathomable. Wherever the trees and
skies are reflected, there is more than Atlantic depth, and no
danger of fancy running aground. We notice that it required a
separate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted vision,
to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to see the river
bottom merely; and so are there manifold visions in the direction
of every object, and even the most opaque reflect the heavens
from their surface.
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