| I DREAM'D that, as I wander'd by the way, | |
| Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring; | |
| And gentle odours led my steps astray, | |
| Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring | |
| Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay | 5 |
| Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling | |
| Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, | |
| But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. | |
| |
| There grew pied wind-flowers and violets; | |
| Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth, | 10 |
| The constellated flower that never sets; | |
| Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth | |
| The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets— | |
| Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth— | |
| Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears | 15 |
| When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. | |
| |
| And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, | |
| Green cowbind and the moonlight-colour'd May, | |
| And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine | |
| Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; | 20 |
| And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, | |
| With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; | |
| And flowers, azure, black, and streak'd with gold, | |
| Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold. | |
| |
| And nearer to the river's trembling edge | 25 |
| There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white, | |
| And starry river-buds among the sedge, | |
| And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, | |
| Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge | |
| With moonlight beams of their own watery light; | 30 |
| And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green | |
| As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. | |
| |
| Methought that of these visionary flowers | |
| I made a nosegay, bound in such a way | |
| That the same hues which in their natural bowers | 35 |
| Were mingled or opposed, the like array | |
| Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours | |
| Within my hand;—and then, elate and gay, | |
| I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come, | |
| That I might there present it—O! to whom? | 40 |
