THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

I.

'TIS a woodland enchanted !

By no sadder spirit

Than blackbirds and thrushes,

That whistle to cheer it

All day in the bushes,

This woodland is haunted:

And in a small clearing,
Beyond sight or hearing

Of human annoyance,
The little fount gushes,
First smoothly, then dashes

And gurgles and flashes,
To the maples and ashes

Confiding its joyance ;
Unconscious confiding,

Then, silent and glossy,

Slips winding and hiding
Through alder-stems mossy,

Through gossamer roots

Fine as nerves,

That tremble, as shoots

Through their magnetized curves

The allurement delicious

Of the water's capricious

Thrills, gushes, and swerves.

II.

"T is a woodland enchanted!

I am writing no fiction;

And this fount, its sole daughter,

To the woodland was granted

To pour holy water

And win benediction;

In summer-noon flushes,

When all the wood hushes,

Blue dragon-flies knitting

To and fro in the sun,

With sidelong jerk flitting

Sink down on the rushes,

And, motionless sitting,

Hear it bubble and run,

Hear its low inward singing,

With level wings swinging
On green tasselled rushes,

To dream in the sun.

III.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
The great August noonlight,
Through myriad rifts slanted,
Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles
With flickering gold;

There, in warm August gloaming,
With quick, silent brightenings,

From meadow-lands roaming,

The firefly twinkles

His fitful heat-lightnings;

There the magical moonlight

With meek, saintly glory

Steeps summit and wold;

There whippoorwills plain in the solitudes hoary,

With lone cries that wander

Now hither, now yonder,

Like souls doomed of old

To a mild purgatory;

But through noonlight and moonlight

The little fount tinkles

Its silver saints'-bells,

That no sprite ill-boding
May make his abode in

Those innocent dells.

IV.

'T is a woodland enchanted!

When the phebe scarce whistles

Once an hour to his fellow,

And, where red lilies flaunted,

Balloons from the thistles

Tell summer's disasters,

The butterflies yellow,

As caught in an eddy

Of air's silent ocean,

Sink, waver, and steady

O'er goat's-beard and asters,
Like souls of dead flowers,
With aimless emotion

Still lingering unready

To leave their old bowers ;
And the fount is no dumber,
But still gleams and flashes,
And gurgles and plashes,
To the measure of summer ;
The butterflies hear it,

And spell-bound are holden,
Still balancing near it

O'er the goat's-beard so golden.

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