University of Virginia Library

Look upon these ‘yellow sands,’
Coloured by no mortal hands:
Look upon this grassy bank,
Crown'd with flowers and osiers dank,
Whereon the milk-white heifers feed:
(White as if of Io's breed.)
Look upon these glassy waters,
Where earth's loveliest daughters
Bathe their limbs and foreheads fair
And wring their dark and streaming hair.

Here, if on summer nights you stray,
When rolls the bright and orbed moon
Thro' the sultry skies of June,
You will see the Spirits play,
And all the Fays keep holiday.
Think not that 'tis but a dream:
For I (the Naiad of the stream)
Have often by the pale moonlight,
Seen them dancing, joyous, light.
Some, heedless of the midnight hours,
Laugh, and 'wake the sleeping flowers:
Some on water-lilies lie
And down the wave float silently:
Some, in circles flying,
Beat with their tiny wings the air,
And rouse the zephyr when he's dying:
Some tumble in the fountain's spray,
And in the lunar rainbows play:
All seem as they were free from care.
—Yet, One there was, who at times would stray,
As on her breast some sorrow weigh'd,
And rest her in the pine-tree shade:
(The blue-eyed queen Titania;)
She, from very grief of heart,
Would from the revel oft depart,
And like a shooting sun-beam, go
To where the Tigris' waters shine,
Or the Cashmere roses blow,
Or where the fir-clad Appennine
Frowns darkly on Italian skies,
Or where, 'neath Summer's smile divine,
Tydoré's spicy forests rise.
—But hark! my master Ocean calls,
And I must hie to his coral halls.