I can fancy high and dainty dames
Sending stout serving-men
To gather store of these sweet Flags,
From river, pool, and fen.
Perhaps to strew a lady’s bower,
Perhaps the castle hall,
Where warlike lords and knights should meet
At stately festival.
How often in the chapel too,
The fresh-thrown reeds might lie;
While the tears and smiles of a bridal band
Went softly passing by!
And they were there when sorrow deep
Wept the untimely doom
Of young, and bright, and beautiful,
Borne to the ancestral tomb.
In sooth it is an ancient thing,
This new-found friend of mine,
And many a scene of joy and wo
Hath it known in days lang syne.
I love it for them all right well,
But yet I love it more
For the fairy scene that lay around
Its home on that lakeless shore:
Beside the bank the stately trees
Waved gently to and fro,
And flitting specks of sunlight fell
The leafy branches thro’,
And danced among the tall keen reeds,
And on the water fell,
Where the merry fish were glancing swift;
And the water snake, as well,
Came, gliding in a graceful curl
All silently and still,
Like a lord in his own dominions there,
Swimming about at will.
Now toward the margin where we stood
We saw him steering on,—
Then under groups of lily leaves
The happy thing was gone.