Читать книгу Poems - William Anderson - Страница 11

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In what delightful land,

Sweet-scented flower, didst thou attain thy birth?

Thou art no offspring of the common earth,

By common breezes fanned!

Full oft my gladdened eye,

In pleasant glade, on river's marge has traced,

(As if there planted by the hand of Taste),

Sweet flowers of every dye:

But never did I see,

In mead or mountain, or domestic bower,

'Mong many a lovely and delicious flower,

One half so fair as thee!

Thy beauty makes rejoice

My inmost heart.—I know not how 'tis so—

Quick-coming fancies thou dost make me know,

For fragrance is thy voice:

And still it comes to me,

In quiet night, and turmoil of the day,

Like memory of friends gone far away,

Or, haply, ceased to be.

Together we'll commune,

As lovers do, when, standing all apart,

No one o'erhears the whispers of their heart,

Save the all-silent moon.

Thy thoughts I can divine,

Although not uttered in vernac'lar words:

Thou me remind'st of songs of forest birds;

Of venerable wine;

Of Earth's fresh shrubs and roots;

Of Summer days, when men their thirsting slake

In the cool fountain, or the cooler lake,

While eating wood-grown fruits:

Thy leaves my memory tell

Of sights, and scents, and sounds, that come again,

Like ocean's murmurs, when the balmy strain

Is echoed in its shell.

The meadows in their green,

Smooth-running waters in the far-off ways,

The deep-voiced forest where the hermit prays,

In thy fair face are seen.

Thy home is in the wild,

'Mong sylvan shades, near music-haunted springs,

Where peace dwells all apart from earthly things,

Like some secluded child.

The beauty of the sky,

The music of the woods, the love that stirs

Wherever Nature charms her worshippers,

Are all by thee brought nigh.

I shall not soon forget

What thou hast taught me in my solitude:

My feelings have acquired a taste of good,

Sweet flower! since first we met.

Thou bring'st unto the soul

A blessing and a peace, inspiring thought!

And dost the goodness and the power denote

Of Him who formed the whole.