The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems

by Washington Allston

And thence, as by its murmur call'd,
The current traced to where it brawl'd
Beneath the noontide ray;
And there beheld the checquer'd shade
Of waves, in many a sinuous braid,
That o'er the sunny channel play'd,
With motion ever gay:

'Twas I to these the magick gave,
That made thy heart, a willing slave,
To gentle Nature bend;
And taught thee how with tree and flower,
And whispering gale, and dropping shower,
In converse sweet to pass the hour,
As with an early friend:

That mid the noontide sunny haze
Did in thy languid bosom raise
The raptures of the boy;
When, wak'd as if to second birth,
Thy soul through every pore look'd forth,
And gaz'd upon the beauteous Earth
With myriad eyes of joy:

That made thy heart, like HIS above,
To flow with universal love
For every living thing.
And, oh! if I, with ray divine,
Thus tempering, did thy soul refine,
Then let thy gentle heart be mine,
And bless the Sylph of Spring.

And next the Sylph of Summer fair;
The while her crisped, golden hair
Half veil'd her sunny eyes:
Nor less may I thy homage claim,
At touch of whose exhaling flame
The fog of Spring that chill'd thy frame
In genial vapour flies.

Oft by the heat of noon opprest,
With flowing hair and open vest,
Thy footsteps have I won
To mossy couch of welling grot,
Where thou hast bless'd thy happy lot.
That thou in that delicious spot
May'st see, not feel, the sun:

Thence tracing from the body's change,
In curious philosophic range,
The motion of the mind;
And how from thought to thought it flew,
Still hoping in each vision new
The faery land of bliss to view,
But ne'er that land to find.

And then, as grew thy languid mood,
To some embow'ring silent wood
I led thy careless way;
Where high from tree to tree in air
Thou saw'st the spider swing her snare.
So bright!--as if, entangled there,
The sun had left a ray:

Or lur'd thee to some beetling steep
To mark the deep and quiet sleep
That wrapt the tarn below;
And mountain blue and forest green
Inverted on its plane serene,
Dim gleaming through the filmy sheen
That glaz'd the painted show;

Perchance, to mark the fisher's skiff
Swift from beneath some shadowy cliff
Dart, like a gust of wind;
And, as she skimm'd the sunny lake,
In many a playful wreath her wake
Far-trailing, like a silvery snake,
With sinuous length behind.