BEYOND our moss-grown pathway lies A dell so fair, to genial eyes It dawns an ever-fresh surprise! To touch its charms with gentler grace, The softened heavens a loving face Bend o'er that sweet, secluded place. There first, despite the March wind's cold, Above the pale-hued emerald mould The earliest spring-tide buds unfold; There first the ardent mock-bird, long Winter's dumb thrall, from winter's wrong Breaks into gleeful floods of song; Till, from coy thrush to garrulous wren, The humbler bards of copse and glen Outpour their vernal notes again; While such harmonious rapture rings, With stir and flash of eager wings Glimpsed fleetly, where the jasmine clings To bosk and briar, we blithely say, "Farewell! bleak nights and mornings gray, Earth opes her festal court to-day!" There, first, from out some balmy nest, By half-grown woodbine flowers caressed, Steal zephyrs of the mild southwest; O'er purpling rows of wild-wood peas, So blandly borne, the droning bees Still suck their honeyed cores at ease; Or, trembling through yon verdurous mass, Dew-starred, and dimpling as they pass The wavelets of the billowy grass! But, fairest of fair things that dwell 'Mid sylvan nurslings of the dell, Is that clear stream whose murmurs swell To music's airiest issues wrought, As if a Naiad's tongue were fraught With secrets of its whispered thought. Yes, fairest of fair things, it flows 'Twixt banks of violet and of rose, Touched always by a quaint repose. How golden bright its currents glide! While goldenly from side to side Bird shadows flit athwart the tide. So Golden Dell we name the place, And aye may Heaven's serenest face Dream o'er it with a smile of grace; For next the moss-grown path it lies, So pure, so fresh to genial eyes It glows with hints of Paradise! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COLUMBUS by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER THE CATERPILLAR by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THIRD REUNION POEM by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE THANKS TO SIR WALTER by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB PROLOGUE FOR NEW YEAR'S DAY by ROBERT BURNS |