Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/167

 By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
 * The while I dance amid the tedded hay

With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide
 * Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees

Around whose roots the fisher's boat is tied,
 * On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,

And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,
 * Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,

That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed
 * Makes the cock shrilly in the rain-storm crow,
 * To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe,

Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead,
 * Whom his own true-love buried in the sands!

Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures
 * The Things of Nature utter; birds or trees

Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. Rh