Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

For months and months that melancholy toad
(Wrapt in profound and sombre reverie)
Her loathsome presence on the place bestow'd.
Eftsoons! sole mistress of the place was she.

110

For neither buck nor doe did ever come,
Nor any bird, to drink of that dark pool.
But gnats around it swarm'd with sullen hum
At noontide: and at evening, in the cool,

Leaflets, above it, babbled to the breeze,
Babbling about some business of their own;
A vague monotonous murmur, hard to seize,
Of many voices, in a speech unknown,

Full of mistrust and mystery; nor aught
The little pool could understand of it.
Deep in its own dark bosom a dull thought,
Brightening at moments ere it faded, lit

With vexing visions of a grandeur gone
The water's stagnant gloom. In dreams again
It heard the thunderous billows bursting on
The wind-blown beaches of the roaring main;

And, fool'd by fancy, felt, or seem'd to feel,
Once more the rapture of a wandering life,
The chase of cloud and bird, of sail and keel,
Thro' sea and sky,—bright rest or buoyant strife!

Its will, at least, was not unworthy yet
To roam the rosy coral reefs, and roll
Fantastic shells with briny dewdrops wet,
Or brilliant seabuds, in a sparkling shoal,

111

Up slumbrous bays of sunny-bosom'd sands,
Where plumy palm-groves slope to purple seas
Far in the light of lonesome faëry lands.
And it recall'd with shuddering ecstasies

A memory of white stars, that did whilome,
Down from the heaven of the high summer night,
Trembling all over with pure passion, come
To bathe in its clear calm their splendours white;

And winds, wild horsemen of the boisterous North.
Who from their skyey coursers leapt, to seize
And in tumultuous dances whirl it forth
Over the tumbling and bewilder'd seas.