Chapter I

A Maiden sang at morn beside a leaping rivulet--
Blithe merriment was on her lip and in her eye of jet;
Young Spring had shaken from his locks the amethystine beam--
O, it was sweet to hear the hymn of forest girl and stream!

A pale youth paddled wantonly far o'er a sunny lake,
And smiled to see the infant leaf in newborn gladness quake;
He had brooded the winter through, until his cheek grew pale
With dreaming mighty deeds, and now it freshened in the gale.

A white roe wandered where sweet herbs and tender grass were
peeping--
His snowy head was poised in pride, his chainless heart was leaping;
The bugle-bee had called the herd from icy solitude,
And he had come at bugle call--fleet centaur of the wood.

A robin bowed her golden breast and spread her gauze-wing forth,
And aye poured she in carol fond her long imprisoned mirth;
No mournful tones, no lute-like wail, were with her music blent;
'Twas--like the fife's shrill voice--a gush of unmixed merriment.

II.

The maiden wild and rivulet were louder in their glee,
The hidden weed waxed lush beneath its woven canopy,
Old summer's conch o'er air-waves lured his fragrance-breathing
throng,
All joy had deepened on the earth, and warmth and light and song.
The youth had seen the singing girl and bowed his soul to love;
Ambition--aspirations--all the subtle springs that move
Man's sleepless youth, were cast aside; old summer's beamy heat
Had fired their souls, and low he knelt in fondness at her feet.

The roe leapt on: the robin wove her nest of downy hair,
And light with bliss high hovered as a blossom floats on air--
Girl, brook, and youth had ripened in the gladness born of spring,
Joy still inflamed the wild-deer's heart and plumed the wild-bird's
wing.