THE PADDOCK
Till, as I rapidly rippled and ran,
Deep in the silence, Singing began:
Bathing, balming the brooding repose,
Fragrance, richer and fresher, uprose:
And, under the equable twilight of green,
Dim through the fern-woof, Shining was seen.
For now ’twixt the boulders I babbled and gush’d,
Over the rocks irresistibly rush’d....
With the shower of my tresses their shoulders were spread,
And they caught me—but, laughing, I loos’d me, and fled
Down! thro’ the dreamy magical Dusk,
Perfumed with Clematis, Myrtle, and Musk....
Laving pink Rootlets thrust from the brink....
Giving the Robin and Fantail to drink....
Here, quick thro’ a channel....there, smooth in a pool....
A volley of crystal....a column of cool....
Tuck’d into nothingness....shooting out
Thro’ a smother of snow to a sliding spout....
Lucid, but lustreless, limpid but brown—
Still amid Darkness, I ran away down.
Sudden, a Sunbeam shot like a shaft
Through the Koninis, and down at me laugh’d.
No longer eluding, no longer afraid,
With laughter I met him, with laughter we play’d,
Rollicking, frollicking, brother with brother,
Tossing and tumbling over each other:
Tickling the twilight with glimmer and gleams,
Pranking the leaves with a pageant of dreams,
Vivid, evasive, of brightness and beams.
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