  It was a mountain stream that with the leap Of its impatient waters had worn out A channel in the rock, and wash'd away The earth that had upheld the tall old trees, Till it was darken'd with the shadowy arch Of the o'er-leaning branches. Here and there It loiter'd in a broad and limpid pool That circled round demurely, and anon Sprung violently over where the rock Fell suddenly, and bore its bubbles on, Till they were broken by the hanging moss, As anger with a gentle word grows calm. In spring-time, when the snows were coming down, And in the flooding of the Autumn rains, No foot might enter there—but in the hot And thirsty summer, when the fountains slept, You could go its channel in the shade, To the far sources, with a brow as cool As in the grotto of the anchorite. Here when an idle student have I come, And in a hollow of the rock lain down And mus'd until the eventide, or read Some fine old Poet till my nook became A haunt of faery, or the busy flow Of water to my spell-bewilder'd ear Seem'd like the din of some gay tournament. Pleasant have been such hours, and tho' the wise Who taught me have reprov'd me that I play'd The truant in the leafy month of June, I deem it true philosophy in him Whose spirit must be temper'd of the world, To loiter with these wayside comforters. |
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