University of Virginia Library


113

XIX. ENCHANTED GROUND.

I sat alone, far in a meadow nook,
Fern, briars and wild-flowers dew around me weeping,
And read upon old Bunyan's Christian book
Of Pilgrims vain on Ground Enchanted sleeping:
As, musing, from the page my gaze I took,
I saw dark ivy round a wild-flower creeping;
A spider, when my eyes that trance forsook,
Its venom on a golden insect heaping,
Did I arrest with my detecting look:
Beyond, a pretty-winged thing was steeping
Its plumes in dew-beams from the woodbine shook,
At which a bird flew by, and caught it, leaping.
Ah! when these evil aspects gird us round,
'Tis best to sleep upon Enchanted Ground.