| |
| COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: | |
| What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), | |
| In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? | |
| But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease | |
| To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, | 5 |
| To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; | |
| And come, for Love is of the valley, come, | |
| For Love is of the valley, come thou down | |
| And find him; by the happy threshold, he, | |
| Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, | 10 |
| Or red with spirted purple of the vats, | |
| Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk | |
| With Death and Morning on the silver horns, | |
| Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, | |
| Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, | 15 |
| That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls | |
| To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: | |
| But follow; let the torrent dance thee down | |
| To find him in the valley; let the wild | |
| Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave | 20 |
| The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill | |
| Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, | |
| That like a broken purpose waste in air: | |
| So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales | |
| Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth | 25 |
| Arise to thee; the children call, and I | |
| Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, | |
| Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; | |
| Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn, | |
| The moan of doves in immemorial elms, | 30 |
| And murmuring of innumerable bees. | |
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