The Woodland Naiad's Song

       I am the merry Naiad
          Of the shady little pool,
And the tittering Niagaras that parody the great;
        And never any Dryad
          In her oaken palace cool,
Received from summer’s bounty such a royal throne of state.

       The elm-tree with its braces
          Buried deeply in the soil,
Has furnished me a seat between the straining of its chords;
       And all the open spaces
          Overwrought by fairy toil
Blend moss and creeping evergreen in interwoven swards.

       With the pictures in her bosom,
          Of her sister and her lover,—
The tenderly enamored tree and its little gap of blue,
       And of many a timid blossom
          From the mossy rim hung over
My Spring is calm below the boughs as the sky which glimmers through!

       But peeping o’er the edges
          With a sparkle in her eye,
She sees some little frolic Fay lurk slyly in the grass,
       And tumbles down the ledges,
           With a merry, merry cry,—
And how gaily the wee mad-caps toss the bubbles in the pass!

       Then with the gravest mocking
          Of the terrible and grand,
Rolls us a filmy spray-cloud, likea fairy’s woven veil,
       And a little sprite comes walking
          With a sunbeam in his hand,
On the rosy pane of morning, and a rainbow in his trail.

       As he leaps the mimic chasm,
          Swung on his golden staff,
While all the tiny people, in among the term and moss,
       Burst with a sudden spasm
           Into a ringing laugh
To see him fall, at times midway, and slash the hues across!

       And yet my frolic daughter
          Has a task to do, withal:
There are dandelions, violets, and grasses to be nurst,
       And think you sluggish water,
          Too dignified to fall,
Would better fill their curved cups, and sate their simple thirst?

       Ha, ha! we are born laughers
          And our little work is play!
In a crooked, bubbling rivulet of liquid mirth and fun
       We glad the bloomy quaffers
          A-down the pebbled way,
And all my crinkled waves leap up and frolic as they run!

        O deep’ning currents, never
           Can their rippled mirth restrain,
Though valleys gulf them in the beds of many throated rivers;
       For when the last broad river
          Blends grandly with the main,
Their merry twinkle on the deep with the primal gladness quivers!

       So have I seen, as purely,
          In my everlasting youth,
Young Girlhood frolic, down her toils into the deep life sea,
        In tiny calms demurely
          Reflect the heavens of truth,
And o’er her solemn earnestness send the ripples of young glee!