Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/75



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.