University of Virginia Library

The Two Streams.

O cool the summer woods
Of dear Gartshore, where bloom
Soft clouds of white anemones
Among their own perfume.
And clear the little brooklet,
Singing an endless lay,
Winding its nameless waters
Close by the white highway.
And here in sweet sensation,
And soul-uneasy swoon,
I've lain for many a golden
Hour of a summer noon.
The cushats crooned around me
Their murmuring amorous song;
And in a brooding drowsiness,
The echoes swooned along;
Till all the sweet sensations
Grew into utter pain,
And I was fain to wander
All sadly home again.
There have been brotherhoods in song,
And human friendships true;
There have been lovers unto death,
Yes, and right many too.
But never in the march of time,
And ne'er in mortal knowing,
From history or nobler rhyme,
Hath there been such constant flowing:
One from mountains far away,
One from glades of emerald shining,
Flowing, flowing evermore
For a delicate combining.
If upon a summer's day,
When the air is blue and bracing,
You for Merkland take your way,
Sweet uneasy fancies chasing;
You may see the famous grove—
If not famous, then most surely
Ripe for fame, which is but love—
Where they mingle most demurely.
Not in song and babbling play
Which no poet could unravel;
But in tender simple way,
On a bed of golden gravel.
Where I sit I see them now,—
Bothlin with her endless winding
From a mountain's purple brow,
Sacred contemplation finding;
In still nooks of shady rest,
Gleaming greenly 'neath the holly:
Youth, she says, is often blest
With a touch of melancholy.
Luggie from the orient fields
Wiser is, yet hath a beauty,
Which the snowy conscience yields
To the softened face of duty.
All she does bespeaks a grace,
Yet the grace hath that of sadness
We behold in many a face,
Where we had expected gladness.
But when Bothlin meets her there,
See the change to sudden glory!
Surely such another pair
Never met in classic story.
I could sing for half a day,
And my spirit never weary
Fashioning the vernal lay
With a linnet's impulse cheery.
But some night in leafy June,
You the place yourself may see;
When the light is in the moon,
Like the passion that's in me.