As it lightly comes and goes,

O'er the jungled river meads,

Stirs a whisper in the reeds,

And wakes the crowded bull-rushes

From their stately reveries,

Flashing through their long-leaved hordes

Like a brandishing of swords;

There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers

Tremble to the golden core,

[52]

Children of enchanted hours,

Whom the rustling river bore

In the night's bewildered noon,

Woven of water and the moon.

I shall hear the grasshoppers

From the parched grass rehearse,

And with drowsy note prolong

Evermore the same thin song.

I shall hear the crickets tell

Stories by the humming well,

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