University of Virginia Library

CCXXX. THE GOLDEN WAVE.

If ever in the vale of Tivoli
You wander through a summer's afternoon,
By grot and tinkling fountain garlanded
With many a wreath of twining foliage,
Pause at the bridge and drink the gushing wave
That streams in sparkling coolness from the rock.
They call it ‘acqua d' oro’: so it is:
As limpid and as pure as if some nymph
Had filled her urn with glittering diamonds
And thawed them with her breath—all sweetest airs
Blown from the heart oth' woodland—pouring them,
That he who drinks might feel his soul within
Changed into such a mad rusticity
As half to wish he were but free to go
A spirit through the trees and rocks and flowers,
To thread the bosky dells invisible
To mortal eye; a sunbeam in the sun,
A shadow in the shade; so much a part
Of all he lives amongst, that where he goes
The sharp-eyed lizard even might not flee:
So might he have for pleasant memories
No other vision than the fairest flowers,
That blue, blue sky, those ever verdant banks,
And, mingling with the summer wind that sighs
Amongst the olives when the nightingale
Rolls his rich melody beneath the moon,
(The harsh cicala silent in the trees:)
Might float through happy dreams to lullaby
Of light-blown murmurs of the waterfalls
Which hang their hoary wreaths from cliff to cliff,
For ever sounding through the sounding vale.