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HARK, hearer, hear what I do; lend a thought now, make believe | |
We are leafwhelmed somewhere with the hood | |
Of some branchy bunchy bushybowered wood, | |
Southern dene or Lancashire clough or Devon cleave, | |
That leans along the loins of hills, where a candycoloured, where a gluegold-brown | 5 |
Marbled river, boisterously beautiful, between | |
Roots and rocks is danced and dandled, all in froth and waterblowballs, down. | |
We are there, when we hear a shout | |
That the hanging honeysuck, the dogeared hazels in the cover | |
Makes dither, makes hover | 10 |
And the riot of a rout | |
Of, it must be, boys from the town | |
Bathing: it is summers sovereign good. | |
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By there comes a listless stranger: beckoned by the noise | |
He drops towards the river: unseen | 15 |
Sees the bevy of them, how the boys | |
With dare and with downdolphinry and bellbright bodies huddling out, | |
Are earthworld, airworld, waterworld thorough hurled, all by turn and turn about. | |
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This garland of their gambols flashes in his breast | |
Into such a sudden zest | 20 |
Of summertime joys | |
That he hies to a pool neighbouring; sees it is the best | |
There; sweetest, freshest, shadowiest; | |
Fairyland; silk-beech, scrolled ash, packed sycamore, wild wychelm, hornbeam fretty overstood | |
By. Rafts and rafts of flake-leaves light, dealt so, painted on the air, | 25 |
Hang as still as hawk or hawkmoth, as the stars or as the angels there, | |
Like the thing that never knew the earth, never off roots | |
Rose. Here he feasts: lovely all is! No more: off withdown he dings | |
His bleachèd both and woolwoven wear: | |
Careless these in coloured wisp | 30 |
All lie tumbled-to; then with loop-locks | |
Forward falling, forehead frowning, lips crisp | |
Over finger-teasing task, his twiny boots | |
Fast he opens, last he offwrings | |
Till walk the world he can with bare his feet | 35 |
And come where lies a coffer, burly all of blocks | |
Built of chancequarrièd, selfquainèd rocks | |
And the water warbles over into, filleted with glassy grassy quicksilvery shivès and shoots | |
And with heavenfallen freshness down from moorland still brims, | |
Dark or daylight on and on. Here he will then, here he will the fleet | 40 |
Flinty kindcold element let break across his limbs | |
Long. Where we leave him, froliclavish while he looks about him, laughs, swims. | |
Enough now; since the sacred matter that I mean | |
I should be wronging longer leaving it to float | |
Upon this only gambolling and echoing-of-earth note | 45 |
What is
the delightful dene? | |
Wedlock. What the water? Spousal love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | |
Father, mother, brothers, sisters, friends | |
Into fairy trees, wild flowers, wood ferns | |
Rankèd round the bower . . . . . . . . | 50 |
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See Notes. |
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