Читать книгу The Two Twilights - Henry A. Beers - Страница 13

Where the black hemlock slants athwart the stream

He came to bathe; the sun's pursuing beam

Laid a warm hand upon him, as he stood

Naked, while noonday silence filled the wood.

Holding the boughs o'erhead, with cautious foot

He felt his way along the mossy root

That edged the brimming pool; then paused and dreamed.

Half like a dryad of the tree he seemed,

Half like the naiad of the stream below,

Suspended there between the water's flow

And the green tree-top world; the love-sick air

Coaxing with softest touch his body fair

A little longer yet to be content

Outside of its own crystal element.

And he, still lingering at the brink, looked down

And marked the sunshine fleck with gold the brown

And sandy floor which paved that woodland pool.

But then, within the shadows deep and cool

Which the close hemlocks on the surface made,

Two eyes met his yet darker than that shade

And, shining through the watery foliage dim,

Two white and slender arms reached up to him.

"Comest thou again, now all the woods are still,

Fair shape, nor even Echo from the hill

Calls her Narcissus? Would her voice were thine,

Dear speechless image, and could answer mine!

Her I but hear and thee I may but see;

Yet, Echo, thou art happy unto me;

For though thyself art but a voice, sad maid,

Thy love the substance is and my love shade.

Alas! for never may I kiss those dumb

Sweet lips, nor ever hope to come

Into that shadow-world that lies somewhere —