O GENTLE rushing of the stainless stream, Haunt of that maiden's dream! O beech and sycamore, whose branches made Her dear ancestral shade! I call you praying; for she felt your power In many an inward hour; To many a wild despairing mood ye gave Some help to heal or save, And sang to heavenlier trances, long and long, Your world-old undersong. Now therefore, if ye may, one moment show One look of long ago; Create from waving sprays and tender dew Her soft fair form anew; From deepening azure of these August skies Relume her ardent eyes! Or if there may not from your sunlit aisle Be born one flying smile,— In all your multitudinous music heard One whisper of one word,— Then wrap me, forest, with thy blowing breath In sleep, in peace, in death; Bear me, swift stream, with immemorial stir, To love, to God, to her. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT KENNEBUNKPORT by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE LAST BUCCANEER by CHARLES KINGSLEY IDYLL 11. THE CYCLOPS by THEOCRITUS SPIRIT WHOSE WORK IS DONE (WASHINGTON CITY, 1865) by WALT WHITMAN EFFICIENCY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE CRITIC by S. F. BATCHELDER |