The Reed-Player by Duncan Campbell Scott. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

The Reed-Player

Duncan Campbell Scott (1862–1947)


BY a dim shore where water darkening
Took the last light of spring,
I went beyond the tumult, hearkening
For some diviner thing.

Where the bats flew from the black elms like leaves,	5
Over the ebon pool
Brooded the bittern’s cry, as one that grieves
Lands ancient, bountiful.

I saw the fire-flies shine below the wood,
Above the shallows dank,	10
As Uriel, from some great altitude,
The planets rank on rank.

And now unseen along the shrouded mead
One went under the hill;
He blew a cadence on his mellow reed,	15
That trembled and was still.

It seemed as if a line of amber fire
Had shot the gathered dusk,
As if had blown a wind from ancient Tyre
Laden with myrrh and musk.	20

He gave his luring note amid the fern;
Its enigmatic fall
Haunted the hollow dusk with golden turn
And argent interval.

I could not know the message that he bore,	25
The springs of life from me
Hidden; his incommunicable lore
As much a mystery.

And as I followed far the magic player
He passed the maple wood,	30
And when I passed the stars had risen there,
And there was solitude.