Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/593

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KNEW it all my boyhood: in a lonesome valley meadow, Like a dryad's mirror hidden by the wood's dim arches near; Its eye flashed back the sunshine, and grew dark and sad with shadow; And I loved its truthful depths where every pebble lay so clear.

I scooped my hand and drank it, and watched the sensate quiver Of the rippling rings of silver as the beads of crystal fell; I pressed the richer grasses from its little trickling river. Till at last I knew, as friends know, every secret of the well.

But one day I stood beside it on a sudden, unexpected, When the sun had crossed the valley and a shadow hid the place; And I looked in the dark water—saw my pallid cheek reflected— And beside it, looking upward, met an evil reptlle face:

Looking upward, furtive, startled at the silent, swift intrusion; Then it darted toward the grasses, and I saw not where it fled; But I knew its eyes were on me, and the old-time sweet illusion Of the pure and perfect symbol I had cherished there was dead.

O, the pain to know the perjury of seeming truth that blesses!