"Who comes so gracefully

  "Gliding along

"While the blue rivulet

  "Sleeps to her song;

"Song richly vying

"With the faint sighing

"Which swans in dying

  "Sweetly prolong?"

So sung the shepherd-boy

  By the stream's side,

Watching that fairy-boat

  Down the flood glide,

Like a bird winging,

Thro' the waves bringing

That Syren, singing

  To the husht tide.

"Stay," said the shepherd-boy,

"Fairy-boat, stay,

"Linger, sweet minstrelsy,

  "Linger a day."

But vain his pleading,

Past him, unheeding,

Song and boat, speeding,

  Glided away.

So to our youthful eyes

  Joy and hope shone;

So while we gazed on them

  Fast they flew on;—

Like flowers declining

Even in the twining,

One moment shining.

  And the next gone!

* * * * *

Soon as the imagined dream went by,

Uprose the nymph, with anxious eye

Turned to the clouds as tho' some boon

She waited from that sun-bright dome,

And marvelled that it came not soon

As her young thoughts would have it come.

But joy is in her glance!—the wing

  Of a white bird is seen above;

And oh, if round his neck he bring

  The long-wished tidings from her love,

Not half so precious in her eyes

  Even that high-omened bird[26] would be.

Who dooms the brow o'er which he flies

  To wear a crown of royalty.

She had herself last evening sent

  A winged messenger whose flight

Thro' the clear, roseate element,

  She watched till lessening out of sight

Far to the golden West it went,

Wafting to him, her distant love,

  A missive in that language wrought

Which flowers can speak when aptly wove,

  Each hue a word, each leaf a thought.

And now—oh speed of pinion, known

To Love's light messengers alone I—

Ere yet another evening takes

Its farewell of the golden lakes,

She sees another envoy fly,

With the wished answer, thro' the sky.