See, sweetheart, how the lilies lay Their lambent leaves about our way; Or, pollen-dusty, nod and float Their moon-like flowers around our boat.—
The middle of the stream we've reached Three strokes from where our boat was beached. Look up. You scarce can see the sky, Through trees that lean, dark, deep, and high;
And coiled with grape and trailing vine Build a vast roof of shade and shine; A house of leaves, where shadows walk, And whispering winds and waters talk.
There is no path. The saplings choke The trunks they spring from. There an oak Lies rotting; and that sycamore, Which lays its bulk from shore to shore,—
Uprooted by the floods,— perchance, May be the bridge to some romance. Now opening through a willow fringe The waters creep, one tawny tinge
Of sunset; and on either marge The cottonwoods make walls of shade; And, near, the gradual hills loom large Within its mirror. Herons wade,
Or fly, like Faery birds, from grass That mats the shore by which we pass. On we pass; we rippling pass, On sunset waters still as glass.
A vesper-sparrow flies above Soft twittering to its woodland love. A whippoorwill now calls afar; And‘ gainst the west, like some swift star,
A glittering jay flies screaming. Slim The sand-snipes and king-fishers skim Before us; and some evening thrush — Who may discover where such sing?—
The silence rinses with a gush Of mellow music bubbling. On we pass.— Now let us oar To yonder strip of ragged shore,
Where, from a rock with lichens hoar, A ferny spring wells. Gliding by The sulphur-colored firefly Lights its pale lamp where mallows gloom,
And wild-bean and wild-mustard bloom.— Some hunter there within the woods Last fall encamped those ashes say And campfire boughs.— The solitudes
Grow dreamy with the death of day.
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