from where I sit
I see two chaffinches, a long-tailed tit,
A missel-thrush, a yaffle----

H. That will do:
I may have overlooked a bird or two.
Where are the biscuits? Are you getting cramp
Down by the water there--it must be damp?

C. I'm only watching till your bottle's cool:
It lies so snug beneath this glassy pool,
Like a sunk battleship; and overhead
The water-boatmen get their daily bread
By rowing all day long, and far below
Two little eels go winding, winding slow . . .
Oh! there's a shark!

H. A what?

C. A miller's thumb.
Don't move, I'll tempt him with a tiny crumb.

H. Be quick about it, please, and don't forget
I am at least as dry as he is wet.

C. Oh, very well then, here's your drink.

{171}

H. That's good!
I feel much better now.

C. I thought you would (_exit quietly_).

H. How beautiful the world is when it breathes
The news of summer!--when the bronzy sheathes
Still hang about the beech-leaf, and the oaks
Are wearing still their dainty tasselled cloaks,
While on the hillside every hawthorn pale
Has taken now her balmy bridal veil,
And, down below, the drowsy murmuring stream
Lulls the warm noonday in an endless dream.
O little brook, far more thou art to me
Than all the pageantry of field and tree:
_Es singen wohl die Nixen_--ah! 'tis truth--
_Tief unten ihren Reih'n_--but only Youth
Can hear them joyfully, as once I lay
And heard them singing of the world's highway,
Of wandering ended, and the maiden found,
And golden bread by magic mill-wheel ground.
Lost is the magic now, the wheel is still,
And long ago the maiden left the mill:
Yet once a year, one day, when summer dawns,
The old, old murmur haunts the river-lawns,
The fairies wake, the fairy song is sung,
And for an hour the wanderer's feet are young (_he dozes_).

C. (returning) Father! I called you twice.

H. I did not know:
Where have you been?

C. Oh, down the stream.

{172}

H. Just so:
Well, I went _up_.

C. I wish you'd been with me.

H. When East is West, my daughter, that may be.

{173}

_D