Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/155

 Gloomy and dark art thou—the crowded firs Tower from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!


 * This be chosen haunt—emancipate

From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waters Dart off asunder with an angry sound,

Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds! And hark, the noise of a near waterfall! I out into light—I find myself Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods), Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock That overbrows the cataract. How bursts The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills Errata