RAREST mood of all the year! Aimless, idle, and content -- Sky and wave and atmosphere Wholly indolent. Little daughter, loose the band From your tresses -- let them pour Shadow-like o'er arm and hand Idling at the oar. Low and clear, and pure and deep, Ripples of the river sing -- Water-lilies, half asleep, Drowsed with listening: Tremulous reflex of skies -- Skies above and skies below, -- Paradise and Paradise Blending even so! Blossoms with their leaves unrolled Laughingly, as they were lips Cleft with ruddy beaten gold Tongues of pollen-tips. Rush and reed, and thorn and vine, Clumped with grasses lithe and tall -- With a web of summer-shine Woven round it all. Back and forth, and to and fro -- Flashing scale and wing as one, -- Dragon-flies that come and go, Shuttled by the sun. Fairy lilts and lullabies, Fine as fantasy conceives, -- Echoes wrought of cricket-cries Sifted through the leaves. O'er the rose, with drowsy buzz, Hangs the bee, and stays his kiss, Even as my fancy does, Gipsy, over this. Let us both be children -- share Youth's glad voyage night and day, Drift adown it, half aware, Anywhere we may. -- Drift and curve and deviate, Veer and eddy, float and flow, Waver, swerve and undulate, As the bubbles go. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PEACE by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AFTER APPLE PICKING by ROBERT FROST LALLA ROOKH: PARADISE AND THE PERI by THOMAS MOORE RONDEL by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE AH, BIND MY HANDS by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS JUNGLE by RICHMOND GEORGE ANTHONY WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OF OUR BELOVED GENERAL STONEWALL JACKSON by CAROLINE AUGUSTA BALL |