Over bank and over brae,
Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountains glisten sheenest,
Where the lady-fern grows strongest,
Where the morning dew lies longest,
Where the black cock sweetest sips it,
Where the fairy latest trips it:
Hie to haunts right seldom seen,
Lovely, lonesome, cool and green,
Over bank and over brae,
Hie away, hie away!
The miller must be good for nought,
Who in his life had never thought
To wander.
It was the water taught us this, —
The water,
That hath no rest by night or day;
That would be wandering far away, -
The water.
This learn we of the mill-wheels too, —
The mill-wheels,
That loath to tarry still are found,
And never tire of turning round, —
The mill-wheels.
The pebbles, heavy though they be,-
The pebbles,
Must mingle in the merry race,
And would be first to quit the place,
The pebbles.
Good master mine, good mistress, pray,
Let me in quiet go my way,
From the German of W. Müller.
USHED with broad sunlight lies the hill,
And, minuting the long day's loss,
The cedar's shadow, slow and still,
Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.
Warm noon brims full the valley's cup.
The aspen's leaves are scarce astir ;
Only the little mill sends up
Its busy, never-ceasing burr.
Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems
The road along the mill-pond's brink,
From 'neath the arching barberry-stems,
My footstep scares the shy chewink.
Beneath a bony buttonwood
The mill's red door lets forth the din;
The whitened miller, dust-imbued,
Flits past the square of dark within.
No mountain torrent's strength is here;
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,
Heaps its small pitcher to the ear,
And gently waits the miller's will.
Swift slips Undine along the race
Unheard, and then, with flashing bound,
Floods the dull wheel with light and grace,
And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.
The miller dreams not at what cost
The quivering millstones hum and whirl,
Nor how for every turn are tost
Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.
But Summer cleared my happier eyes
With drops of some celestial juice,
To see how Beauty underlies
Forevermore each form of Use.
And more methought I saw that flood,
Which now so dull and darkling steals,
Thick, here and there, with human blood,
To turn the world's laborious wheels.
No more than doth the miller there,
Shut in our several cells, do we
Know with what waste of beauty rare
Moves every day's machinery.
Surely the wiser time shall come
When this fine overplus of might,
No longer sullen, slow, and dumb,
Shail leap to music and to light.
In that new childhood of the Earth
Life of itself shall dance and play,
Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth,
And labor meet delight half-way.
OLLO, my Fancy! Thou art free
Nor bolt nor shackle fetters thee!
Thy prison door is cleft in twain,
And Nature claims her child again;
Doff the base weeds of toil and strife,
And hail the world's returning life!
Hollo, my fancy! It is good
To seek soul-soothing solitude;
To roam where greenwoods thickest grow,
Where meadows spread and rivers flow,
Where mountains loom in mist, or lie
Clad in a sunshine livery;
Wander through dingle and through dell,
Which the sweet primrose loveth well;
And where, in every ivied cranny
Of mouldering crag, unseen by any,
Clouds of busy birds are dinning
Anthems that welcome day's beginning:
Or, like lusty shepherd groom,
Wade through seas of yellow broom ;
And with foot elastic tread
On the shrinking floweret's head,
As it droops with dewdrops laden
Like some tear-surcharged maiden.
Woodward, brave Fancy! Overhead
The sun is waxing fiery red ;
No cloud is floating on the sky
To interrupt his brilliancy,
Or mar the glory of his ray
While journeying on his lucid way.
But here, within this forest chase,
We'll wander for a fleeting space,
'Mid walks beneath whose clustering leaves Bright noontides wane to sober eves.
Until the Sun hath sunken down
Over the folly-haunting town,
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