Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/521

In midst, to cheer the ravish'd gazer's view,
A gushing fount its waters upward threw,
Thence slowly on with crystal current pass'd,
And crept into the distant flood at last:
But nigh its source a pine's umbrageous head
Stretch'd far and wide in deathless verdure spread,
Met with broad shade the summers's sultry gleam,
And through the livelong year shut out the beam.
"Such was the scene:—yet still the place was bless'd
With one rare pleasure passing all the rest:
A wondrous bird of energies divine
Had fix'd his dwelling in the tufted pine;
There still he sat, and there with amorous lay,
Wak'd the dim morn, and clos'd the parting day:
Match'd with the strains of linked sweetness wrought
The violin and full-ton'd harp were nought;
Of power they were with new-born joy to move
The cheerless heart of long-desponding love;
Of power so strange, that should they cease to sound,
And the blithe songster flee the mystick ground,
That goodly orchard's scene, the pine-tree's shade,
Trees, flowers, and fount, would all like vapour fade.