II

Down precipices of the dawn The rivers of the day are drawn, The soundless torrents, free and far, Of gold that deluge every star.

There is a sound of brooks and wings That fills the woods with carollings; And, dashed on moss and flow'r and fern, And leaves, that quiver, breathe and burn,

Rose-radiance smites the solitudes, The dew-drenched hills, the dripping woods, That twitter as with canticles Of shade and light; and wind, that smells

Of flowers, and buds, and boisterous bees, Delirious honey, and wet trees.— Through briers that trip them, one by one, With swinging pails, that take the sun,

A troop of girls comes — berriers, Whose bare feet glitter where they pass Through dewdrop-trembling tufts of grass. And, oh! their laughter and their cheers

Wake Echo‘ mid her shrubby rocks Who, answering, from her mountain mocks With rapid fairy horns; as if Each mossy vale and weedy cliff

Had its imperial Oberon, Who, seeking his Titania, hid In coverts caverned from the sun, In kingly wrath had called and chid.

Cloud-feathers, oozing orange light, Make rich the Indian locks of night; Her dusky waist with sultry gold Girdled and buckled fold on fold.

One star. A sound of bleating flocks. Great shadows stretched along the rocks, Like giant curses overthrown By some Arthurian champion.

Soft-swimming sorceries of mist That streak blue glens with amethyst. And, tinkling in the clover dells, The twilight sound of cattle-bells.

And where the marsh in reed and grass Burns, angry as a shattered glass, The flies make golden blurs, that shine Like drops of amber-scattered wine

Spun high by reeling Bacchanals, When Bacchus wreathes his curling hair With vine-leaves, and from every lair His worshippers around him calls.

They come, they come, a happy throng, The berriers with gibe and song; Their pails brimmed black to tin-bright eaves With luscious fruit, kept cool with leaves

Of aromatic sassafras; ‘ Twixt which some sparkling berry slips, Like laughter, from the purple mass, Wine-swollen as Silenus’ lips.