would please me well,' Mahmood said; "but, with the block there, I my truth must sell.

sound;

360

Beyond sight or hearing
Of human annoyance,
The little fount gushes,
First smoothly, then dashes
And gurgles and flashes,
To the maples and ashes
Confiding its joyance;
Unconscious confiding,
Then, silent and glossy,
Slips winding and hiding
Through alder-stems mossy,
Through gossamer roots
Fine as nerves,

That tremble, as shoots
Through their magnetized curves
The allurement delicious
Of the water's capricious
Thrills, gushes, and swerves.

II.

"Tis a woodland enchanted! I am writing no fiction;

And this fount, its sole daughter, To the woodland was granted To pour holy water And win benediction; In summer-noon flushes, When all the wood hushes, Blue dragon-flies knitting To and fro in the sun, With sidelong jerk flitting Sink down on the rushes, And, motionless sitting, Hear it bubble and run, Hear its low inward singing, With level wings swinging On green tasselled rushes, To dream in the sun.

III.

'Tis a woodland enchanted!
The great August noonlight,
Through myriad rifts slanted,
Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles
With flickering gold;

There, in warm August gloaming,
With quick, silent brightenings,
From meadow-lands roaming,
The firefly twinkles

With lone cries that wander
Now hither, now yonder,
Like souls doomed of old
To a mild purgatory;

But through noonlight and moonlight
The little fount tinkles
Its silver saints'-bells,
That no sprite ill-boding
May make his abode in
Those innocent dells.

IV.

'T is a woodland enchanted! When the phebe scarce whistles Once an hour to his fellow, And, where red lilies flaunted, Balloons from the thistles Tell summer's disasters, The butterflies yellow, As caught in an eddy Of air's silent ocean, Sink, waver, and steady O'er goats'-beard and asters, Like souls of dead flowers, With aimless emotion Still lingering unready To leave their old bowers; And the fount is no dumber, But still gleams and flashes, And gurgles and plashes, To the measure of summer; The butterflies hear it, And spell-bound are holden, Still balancing near it O'er the goats'-beard so golden.

V.

'T is a woodland enchanted! A vast silver willow, I know not how planted, (This wood is enchanted, And full of surprises,) Stands stemming a billow, A motionless billow Of ankle-deep mosses; Two great roots it crosses To make a round basin, And there the Fount rises; Ah, too pure a mirror For one sick of error To see his sad face in!

No dew-drop is stiller

His fitful heat-lightnings;

There the magical moonlight

With meek, saintly glory

Steeps summit and wold;

In its lupin-leaf setting

tudes hoary

But a tiny sand-pillar

My feet are drawn thither,

And, looking with awe in the magical mirror,

I see through my tears,
Half doubtful of seeing,
The face unperverted,
The warm golden being
Of a child of five years;

And spite of the mists and the error,
And the days overcast,

Can feel that I walk undeserted,
But forever attended

By the glad heavens that bended
O'er the innocent past;
Toward fancy or truth

Doth the sweet vision win me?
Dare I think that I cast
In the fountain of youth
The fleeting reflection
Of some bygone perfection
That still lingers in me?

THE fire is burning clear and blithely, Pleasantly whistles the winter wind; We are about thee, thy friends and kindred,

On us all flickers the firelight kind; There thou sitt'st in thy wonted corner Lone and awful in thy darkened mind.

There thou sitt'st; now and then thou moanest;

Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, Lookest at us with an eye so doubtful, It doth put us very far from thee; There thou sittest; we would fain be nigh thee,

But we know that it can never be.

We can touch thee, still we are no

nearer; Gather round thee, still thou art alone; The wide chasm of reason is between us; Thou confutest kindness with a moan; We can speak to thee, and thou canst

answer,

Like two prisoners through a wall of

stone.