University of Virginia Library

Thou who art wearied with the idle world,
Come to my hospitable shade. No sound
Shall here disturb thee, but the gentle gush
Of a clear-flowing fountain, poured away
From a rude, rocky hollow. Overhead
My branches weaved with ivy and spring flowers,
Moss-rose and woodbine, intercept the day,
And make perpetual twilight. Dark below
Gushes the ever-spouting spring, and spreads
Light dew upon the moss that beds it in,
As with a velvet margin. There it lies
Clear to its lowest depth, for ever circling
With the undulation of the wave below,
And with the faint, uninterrupted dash
Of the bright crystal curve, that from the rocks
Darts with a never-wearied leap away.

Enter beneath my hospitable shade,
And thou mayest hold communion with the world
Of beautiful and pure imaginings,
Egerias and Dianas, such as came
On the soft moonlight to Endymion,
Or such as to the thoughtful Roman king
Were all apparent at the silent hour
When the sun sank beneath the Iberian wave,
And gayly on the Alban mountain's cone
Glittered the last departing beam of day.

Here thou mayest sit, and, making of the moss
A pillow for thee, ponder silently
On thy most inward feelings, and control
Thy passions to a calm. 'T is wisdom oft
To leave the bustle of resort, and seek
Silence wherein to meditate and hold
Communion with the spirits of better men,
And better times,—for so we always deem,
When we are over-wearied with the push
And jostling of life,—of better times,
When our gray ancestors grew purely old,
And in the last declining hour of life
Had all the innocence of childhood. Fond
And soothing is the dream: it quickens us
To emulate them, so that we may look
Upon their monuments without the blush
Of shame to mantle o'er our brows. One hour
Of thoughtful solitude may nerve the heart
For days of conflict,—girding up its armor
To meet the most insidious foe, and lending
The courage sprung alone from innocence
And good intent.
The sun glows overhead
Intensely, and the hot and sultry blue,
Unclouded and unstained, burns with the blaze
That fills the orb of noon: the panting hart
Looks for a shelter, and a cool, fresh spring
To slake his thirst; the cattle in the brook
Lave their hot sides, and underneath the elm,
Arching its hanging branches till they dip
And kiss the scarcely gliding water, mute
And patiently await the coming on
Of evening, to go out around the beds
Of tufted grass and wild-flowers, there to crop
The tender herbage. Wearied as thou art,
Come to my woodland hall, and thou wilt find
Beneath my canopy of leaf and vine,
And on my beds of moss, so soft, they seem
Instinct with a quick spirit swelling them
To meet thy gentle pressure,—thou wilt find
In these, and in the clear and glassy depth
Of the round basin, strewed with sands, like snow
Drifting and heaving, as the waters gush
From their unknown and hidden cave,—the fall
Of molten crystal lapsing from the rocks
Amid an intertangled mass of fern
And cresses, where the sifted fountain flies
Away in a light vapory cloud, that fills
Freshly my secret bower,—ah! thou wilt find
The coolness thou dost long for, and the peace,
The silent peace, thy over-wearied heart
So long has sought and found not.