University of Virginia Library

That was a lovely brook, by whose green marge
We two, the patient angler and his child,
Loitered away so many summer days!
A shallow sparkling stream, it hurried, now
Leaping and glancing among large round stones,
With everlasting friction chafing still
Their polished smoothness, on a gravelly bed
Then softly slipped away with rippling sound,
Or all inaudible where the green moss
Sloped down to meet the clear reflected wave
That lipped its emerald bank with seeming show
Of gentle dalliance; in a dark, deep pool
Collected now, the peaceful waters slept,
Embayed by rugged headlands, hollow roots
Of huge old pollard willows. Anchored there,
Rode safe from every gale a sylvan fleet
Of milk-white water-lilies, every bark
Worthy as those on his own sacred flood
To waft the Indian Cupid. Then the stream
Brawling again o'er pebbly shallows ran,
On, on to where a rustic, rough-hewn bridge,
All bright with mosses and green ivy wreaths,
Spanned the small channel with its single arch;
And underneath the bank on either side
Shelved down into the water, darkly green
With unsunned verdure, or whereon the sun
Looked only when his rays at eventide
Obliquely glanced between the blackened piers
With arrowy beams of orient emerald light
Touching the river and its velvet marge.
'Twas there, beneath the archway, just within
Its rough misshapen piles, I found a cave,
A little secret cell—one large flat stone
Its ample floor, imbedded deep in moss,
And a rich tuft of dark blue violet;
And fretted o'er with curious groining dark,
Like vault of Gothic chapel, was the roof
Of that small cunning cave—“The Naiad's Grot”
I named it learnedly, for I had read
About Egeria, and was deeply versed
In heathenish stories of the guardian tribes
In groves, and single trees, and sylvan streams
Abiding co-existent. So methought
The little Naiad of our brook might haunt
That cool retreat, and to her guardian care
My wont was ever, at the bridge arrived,
To trust our basket, with its simple store
Of home-made, wholesome cates, by one at home
Provided for our banquet-hour at noon.