| |
| I SAW it in my evening walk, | |
| A little lonely flower! | |
| Under a hollow bank it grew, | |
| Deep in a mossy bower. | |
| |
| An oak’s gnarl’d root, to roof the cave | 5 |
| With Gothic fretwork sprung, | |
| Whence jewell’d fern, and arum leaves, | |
| And ivy garlands hung. | |
| |
| And from beneath came sparkling out | |
| From a fallen tree’s old shell, | 10 |
| A little rill, that dipt about | |
| The lady in her cell. | |
| |
| And there, methought, with bashful pride, | |
| She seem’d to sit and look | |
| On her own maiden loveliness | 15 |
| Pale imaged in the brook. | |
| |
| No other flower—no rival grew | |
| Beside my pensive maid; | |
| She dwelt alone, a cloister’d nun, | |
| In solitude and shade. | 20 |
| |
| No sunbeam on that fairy well | |
| Darted its dazzling light— | |
| Only, methought, some clear, cold star | |
| Might tremble there at night. | |
| |
| No ruffling wind could reach her there— | 25 |
| No eye, methought, but mine, | |
| Or the young lamb’s that came to drink, | |
| Had spied her secret shrine. | |
| |
| And there was pleasantness to me | |
| In such belief. Cold eyes | 30 |
| That slight dear Nature’s lowliness, | |
| Profane her mysteries. | |
| |
| Long time I looked and linger’d there, | |
| Absorb’d in still delight— | |
| My spirit drank deep quietness | 35 |
| In, with that quiet sight. | |
| |
