THE FRUIT PLUCKER

Encinctured with a twine of leaves,

That leafy twine his only dress,

A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,

By moonlight, in a wilderness.

The moon was bright, the air was free,

And fruits and flowers together grew

On many a shrub and many a tree:

And all put on a gentle hue,

Hanging in the shadowy air

Like a picture rich and rare.

It was a climate where, they say,

The night is more beloved than day.

But who that beauteous Boy beguiled,

That beauteous Boy to linger here?

Alone, by night, a little child,

In place so silent and so wild—

Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[347]