Lays and Legends (Second Series)

Автор

Эдит Несбит

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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They lie beside the river's edge,
By fields with buttercups a-blaze;
They whisper in the whispering sedge,
They say the spell the cuckoo says.

And when they hear the nightingale
And see the blossomed hawthorn tree,
What time the orchard pink grows pale —
The river maidens beckon me.

Through all the city's smoke appear
White arms and golden hair a-gleam,
And through the noise of life I hear
"Come back – to the enchanted stream.

"Come back to water, wood and weir!
See what the summer has to show!
Come back, come back – we too are here."
I hear them calling, and I go.

But when once more my dripping oar
Makes music on the dreaming air,
I vainly look to stream and shore
For those white arms that lured me there.

I listen to the singing weir,
I hold my breath where thrushes are,
But I can never, never hear
The voice that called me from afar.

Only when spring grows fair next year,
Even where sin and cities be,
I know what voices I shall hear,
And what white arms will beckon me.

ON THE MEDWAY

I

In summer evening, love,
We glide by grassy meadows,
Red sun is shining,
Day is declining,
Peace is around, above.
The poplar folds on high
Dark wings against the sky;
Through dreaming shadows
On we move,
Silently, you and I.

And seaward still we row,
By sedge and bulrush sliding,
Breezes are sending
Ripples unending
Over the way we go.
Above the poplar tree
The moon sails white and free,
The boat goes gliding
Swift or slow,
But ever towards the sea.

II

Dip, drip, in and out
The rhythmic oars move slowly,
Mist-kissed, round about
The pale sky reddens wholly;
Chill, still, through waxing light
Mystical and tender,
Morn, born of starlit night,
Clothes herself with splendour.

Rose-glows in eastern sky,
In the north faint flushes;
Boat, float idly by
Past the sedge and rushes!
Here, near the willow screen
River-gods bathe gaily;
White, bright against the green,
Poets see them daily.

See, we, we alone
Greet this fresh sun-waking,
Too few, who hail day done,
See it in the making!
Sad, glad, we two see
Dawn the earth adorning,
Sigh: "Why can no noon be
Worth so gold a morning?"

III

It was beside a wide, white weir,
Where the foam dances in the sun,
The butterflies are fair this year,
And o'er the weir there hovered one —
A far-off cottage curled its smoke
Against a blue and perfect sky;
There love triumphant laughed and woke,