The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince :: :: University of Virginia Library

I shall ever remember that morning of May
When I wandered to watch the first footsteps of day;
When I made a green path through the silvery dew,
And trampled the feather-like fern where it grew.
Untutored, but thoughtful, I then was a child,
In love with the silence that reigned in the wild,
And thus by the power of invisible spell,
I was led to the brink of the bright Woodland Well!

Sweet shadowy place of my musing, thy spring
Seemed ever a buoyant and beautiful thing,
As its waters leapt up from the depths of the ground
With a flash and a sparkle, a bubble and bound:
They sang in the shade, and they laughed in the light,
As blithe as the birds in their first summer flight,—
Then onward they went with a low pleasant voice,
Like bees in the sunshine let loose to rejoice,
Through banks sloping down from the green twilight bowers,
On—on was their march through a legion of flowers,
Which, shaking their bells as the waters passed by,
Paid homage in many an odorous sigh;
Let fancy pursue them for many a mile,
Through forests that frown, and through meadows that smile,
Through many a valley, and corn-field, and lea,
Till they mingle with rivers that rush to the sea.

Come back to the woodland, come back to the well,
That musical mirror of Barley-wood dell,—

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That treasure of crystal, to memory dear,
Exhaustless and restless for many a year.
When the rose folded up at the close of the day,
And the rich hues of sunset waned slowly away,
The light-footed maiden would step o'er the stile,
To replenish her pitcher, and tarry awhile,
Till her lover would steal through the shadowy bower
To snatch from existence one rapturous hour;
They would talk and caress, they would laugh, they would sing,
Till the bird in the bough, with a tremulous wing,
Would start from its slumber, and wheel round its nest,
Till silence restored brought it back to its rest.
Could that fountain have told all the secrets that fell
From the lips of the loving that met in the dell,
What a story of truthfulness, sorrow, or gladness,
Of moments of ecstasy, followed by sadness,
Of vows that were uttered too soon to be broken,
Of hearts that were won by the words that were spoken.
Some lovely and lost one might thither repair,
And drop in its waters the tears of despair;
Perchance e'en the faithful, the tender, the true,
Might return to the spot former joys to renew,
And allude to the past, with no wish to forget
The enchantment that hung round the place where they met.
In gloomy December, or glorious June,

That fountain unceasingly mirror'd the skies;
The meteor, the sun, and the silver-bowed moon,

The stars, with their numberless magical eyes;
The vapour-built cloud, with its protean form,
Whether pausing in calm, or pursued by the storm.
All—all in their turn o'er its surface would pass,
Like dreams over Fancy's mysterious glass;
Those visions of splendour and darkness that creep
Through the brain of the Bard in the season of sleep.

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Such—such was the well that I knew as a child,
In its green nook of quietness never defiled;
But, alas! after twenty long winters of strife
In the crowded arena of many-hued life,
I flew to revisit with feelings of joy
The scene which had made my romance when a boy,
And found it, not what I had left it, a spot
Where quiet, and beauty, and pleasure were not;
For the bold foot of Mammon had dared to intrude
On the sylvan recesses of Barley-brook Wood.
The trees were uprooted, the fern and the flowers
No longer grew gay in the sunlight and showers;
The well was laid bare, and its waters conveyed
To be tortured and tossed in the uses of Trade;
And the scene which was once my retreat and delight
Lay withered, and blackened, and bleak to my sight.
No longer the voice of the maiden was heard,
Nor the lisp of the leaf, nor the song of the bird,
Nor the lapse of the rill, nor the musical moan
Of the stream, as it danced over pebble and stone;
But sounds of rude clangour invaded the ear,
Which changed into discord the wild echoes near;
Like a pilgrim returned to the home of his birth,
When all that he loved has departed from earth,
I lingered awhile in the thraldom of thought,
To mourn o'er the ruin that Mammon had brought,
Then turned me away from the desolate scene,
As though, save in fancy, it never had been.

But still in my moments of grief and of gloom,
It comes, like a picture, in beauty and bloom,
As green and as silent, as fresh and as bright,
As when I first found it by May's morning light,
And though I look back with a sigh of regret,
The Well and the Woodland remain with me yet.