Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/154

 And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm Is broken—all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes! The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return! And lo! he stays: And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror, and behold Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree—but where, O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone! Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth! Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad Love-yearning by the vacant brook, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, The Naiad of the Mirror!

Not to thee, O wild and desert Stream! belongs this tale: