And mossy valley, gently purling streams

Gushed rippling on, and in their windings made

Deep woodland haunts, unpierced by sunny beams,

Sweet bowers for purest love,—fit nooks for poet’s dreams.

Here were rock-fragments clad with tangled moss

And crowned with wildflowers’ gay and drooping bells;

Here trees majestic shot wide boughs across

To form vast arbours, or green leafy cells,

Amidst whose verdure coolness ever dwells;

And on the brook-sides’ grassy banks arose,