lness, and the rush of streams,
Save where the dazzling fire of noonday fell
Like stars within its under-sky of dreams.
Rich leaf and blossomed grape and fern-tuft made
Odors of Life and Slumber through the shade.

II.

"O peaceful heart of Nature!" was my sigh,
"How dost thou shame, in thine unconscious bliss,
Thy calm accordance with the changing sky,
O quiet heart, the restless life of this!
Take thou the place false friends have vacant left,
And bring thy bounty to repair the theft!"

III.

So sighing, weary with the unsoothed pain
From insect-stings of women and of men,
Uneasy heart and ever-baffled brain,
I breathed the silent beauty of the glen,
And from the fragrant shadows where she stood
Evoked the shyest Dryad of the wood.

IV.

Lo! on a slanting rock, outstretched at length,
A woodman lay in slumber, fair as death,--
His limbs relaxed in all their supple strength,
His lips half-parted with his easy breath,
And by one gleam of hovering light caressed
His bare brown arm and white uncovered breast.

V.

"Why comes he here?" I whispered, treading soft
The hushing moss beside his flinty bed:
"Sweet are the haycocks in yon clover-croft,--
The meadow turf were light beneath his head:
Could he not slumber by the orchard-tree,
And leave this quiet unprofaned for me?"

VI.

But something held my step. I bent, and scanned
(As one might view a veiny agate-stone)
The hard, half-open fingers of his hand,
Strong cords of wrist, knit round the jointed bone,
And sunburnt muscles, firm and full of power,
But harmless now as petals of a flower.

VII.

The rock itself was not more still: yet one
Light spray of grass shook ever at his wrist,
Counting the muffled pulses. Where the sun
The open fairness of his bosom kissed,
I marked the curious beauty of the skirt,
And dim blue branches of the blood within.

VIII.

There lay the unconscious Life, but, ah! more fair
Than ever blindly stirred in leaf and bark,--
Warmth, beauty, passion, mystery everywhere,
Beyond the Dryad's feebly burning spark
Of cold poetic being: who could say
If here the angel or the wild beast lay?