And round about them grows a fringe of reeds,
    And then a floating crown of lily-flowers,
And yet within small silver-budded weeds;
    But each clear centre evermore embowers
A deeper sky, where, stooping, you may see
The little minnows darting restlessly.

My heart is bitter, lilies, at your sweet;
    Why did the dewdrop fringe your chalices? 
Why in your beauty are you thus complete,
    You silver ships—­you floating palaces? 
O! if need be, you must allure man’s eye,
    Yet wherefore blossom here?  O why?  O why?

O!  O! the world is wide, you lily flowers,
    It hath warm forests, cleft by stilly pools,
Where every night bathe crowds of stars; and bowers
    Of spicery hang over.  Sweet air cools
And shakes the lilies among those stars that lie: 
Why are not ye content to reign there?  Why?

That chain of bridges, it were hard to tell
    How it is linked with all my early joy. 
There was a little foot that I loved well,
    It danced across them when I was a boy;
There was a careless voice that used to sing;
There was a child, a sweet and happy thing.

Oft through that matted wood of oak and birch
    She came from yonder house upon the hill;
She crossed the wooden bridges to the church,
    And watched, with village girls, my boasted skill: 
But loved to watch the floating lilies best,
Or linger, peering in a swallow’s nest;

Linger and linger, with her wistful eyes
    Drawn to the lily-buds that lay so white
And soft on crimson water; for the skies
    Would crimson, and the little cloudlets bright
Would all be flung among the flowers sheer down,
To flush the spaces of their clustering crown.

Till the green rushes—­O, so glossy green—­
    The rushes, they would whisper, rustle, shake;
And forth on floating gauze, no jewelled queen
    So rich, the green-eyed dragon-flies would break,
And hover on the flowers—­aerial things,
With little rainbows flickering on their wings.

Ah! my heart dear! the polished pools lie still,
    Like lanes of water reddened by the west,
Till, swooping down from yon o’erhanging hill,
    The bold marsh harrier wets her tawny breast;
We scared her oft in childhood from her prey,
And the old eager thoughts rise fresh as yesterday.

To yonder copse by moonlight I did go,
    In luxury of mischief, half afraid,
To steal the great owl’s brood, her downy snow,
    Her screaming imps to seize, the while she preyed
With yellow, cruel eyes, whose radiant glare,
Fell with their mother rage, I might not dare.

Panting I lay till her great fanning wings
    Troubled the dreams of rock-doves, slumbering nigh,
And she and her fierce mate, like evil things,
    Skimmed the dusk fields; then rising, with a cry
Of fear, joy, triumph, darted on my prey. 
    And tore it from the nest and fled away.