  SO sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing, So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see; So blithe and gay the humming-bird a-going From flower to flower, a-hunting with the bee. So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes, The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere; So sweet the water’s song through reeds and rushes, The plover’s piping note, now here, now there. So sweet, so sweet from off the fields of clover The west wind blowing, blowing up the hill; So sweet, so sweet with news of some one’s lover, Fleet footsteps, singing nearer, nearer still. So near, so near, now listen, listen, thrushes; Now, plover, blackbird, cease, and let me hear; And, water, hush your song through reeds and rushes, That I may know whose lover cometh near. So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling, Plover or blackbird never heeding me; So loud the millstream too kept fretting, falling, O’er bar and bank in brawling, boisterous glee. So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush nor plover, Nor noisy millstream, in its fret and fall, Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover, My lover calling through the thrushes’ call. “Come down, come down!” he called, and straight the thrushes From mate to mate sang all at once, “Come down!” And while the water laughed through reeds and rushes, The blackbird chirped, the plover piped, “Come down!” Then down and off, and through the fields of clover, I followed, followed at my lover’s call; Listening no more to blackbird, thrush or plover, The water’s laugh, the millstream’s fret and fall. |
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