What though while the wonders of nature exploring,

      I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend;

      Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,

      Bless Cynthia’s face, the enthusiast’s friend:

      Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes,

      With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove;

      Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes,

      Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews.

      Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling?

      Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare?

      Ah! you list to the nightingale’s tender condoling,

      Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air.

      ’Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,

      I see you are treading the verge of the sea:

      And now! ah, I see it – you just now are stooping

      To pick up the keep-sake intended for me.

      If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending,

      Had brought me a gem from the fretwork of heaven;

      And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending,

      The blessings of Tighe had melodiously given;

      It had not created a warmer emotion

      Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you,

      Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean

      Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw.

      For, indeed, ’tis a sweet and peculiar pleasure,

      (And blissful is he who such happiness finds,)

      To possess but a span of the hour of leisure,

      In elegant, pure, and aerial minds.

      Young Calidore is paddling o’er the lake;

      His healthful spirit eager and awake

      To feel the beauty of a silent eve,

      Which seem’d full loath this happy world to leave;

      The light dwelt o’er the scene so lingeringly.

      He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky,

      And smiles at the far clearness all around,

      Until his heart is well nigh over wound,

      And turns for calmness to the pleasant green

      Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean

      So elegantly o’er the waters’ brim

      And show their blossoms trim.

      Scarce can his clear and nimble eyesight follow

      The freaks, and dartings of the black-wing’d swallow,

      Delighting much, to see it half at rest,

      Dip so refreshingly its wings, and breast

      ‘Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon,

      The widening circles into nothing gone.

      And now the sharp keel of his little boat

      Comes up with ripple, and with easy float,

      And glides into a bed of water lillies:

      Broad leav’d are they and their white canopies

      Are upward turn’d to catch the heavens’ dew.

      Near to a little island’s point they grew;

      Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view

      Of this sweet spot of earth. The bowery shore

      Went off in gentle windings to the hoar

      And light blue mountains: but no breathing man

      With a warm heart, and eye prepared to scan

      Nature’s clear beauty, could pass lightly by

      Objects that look’d out so invitingly

      On either side. These, gentle Calidore

      Greeted, as he had known them long before.

      The sidelong view of swelling leafiness,

      Which the glad setting sun, in gold doth dress;

      Whence ever, and anon the jay outsprings,

      And scales upon the beauty of its wings.

      The lonely turret, shatter’d, and outworn,

      Stands venerably proud; too proud to mourn

      Its long lost grandeur: fir trees grow around,

      Aye dropping their hard fruit upon the ground.

      The little chapel with the cross above

      Upholding wreaths of ivy; the white dove,

      That on the windows spreads his feathers light,

      And seems from purple clouds to wing its flight.

      Green tufted islands casting their soft shades

      Across the lake; sequester’d leafy glades,

      That through the dimness of their twilight show

      Large dock leaves, spiral foxgloves, or the glow

      Of the wild cat’s eyes, or the silvery stems

      Of delicate birch trees, or long grass which hems

      A little brook. The youth had long been viewing

      These pleasant things, and heaven was bedewing

      The mountain flowers, when his glad senses caught

      A trumpet’s silver voice. Ah! it was fraught

      With many joys for him: the warder’s ken

      Had found white coursers prancing in the glen:

      Friends very dear to him he soon will see;

      So pushes off his boat most eagerly,

      And soon upon the lake he skims along,

      Deaf to the nightingale’s first undersong;

      Nor minds he the white swans that dream so sweetly:

      His spirit flies before him so completely.

      And now he turns a jutting point of land,

      Whence