BETA

On the Thames—July.

Turned the mill to measured music, fell in soft cas-
cades the spray,1
Throwing clouds of silver showers on the eddies clear as
they ;2
Leapt the troutling idly darting from some root-encircled
spot,3
Bent the bulrush, blushed the mallow, smiled the blue
forget-me-not.4
Sailed the white swans by the rushes, fanned their proud
wings in the breeze,5
Fell the flakes of summer blossom from the overladen
trees ;6
Sang the river with a ripple of its clear and crystal
stream,7
As the sleeper stirs in slumber at the bidding of a
dream.8
Whistled loud the sturdy rustic, though no longer sped
the plough,9
Chirped the cricket in the clover, chirped the brown
wren on the bough ;10
Oh, that sin should e’er beset us from the moment of our
birth ;11
Oh, that grief should ever sadden this glad garden-land
of Earth !12
Lay the miller’s boy a-dreaming in the flower-sprinkled
grass13
Blithely carolled, in the morning air, the miller’s comely
lass ;14
Hearts are tuned to Nature’s music, when her face is
smiling fair,15
And ’tis happiness in summer but to feel the sun and
air.16
Oh, that flowers e’er should wither ; oh, that storms
should e’er arise17
To draw their sombre veiling o’er the calm blue of the
skies !18
Yet it is so, it must be so : we could have no daybreak
bright :19
If it were not that the dawn must be preceded by the
night !20