Come down O Maid
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 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 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 #CCCCFF ravine Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice 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 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 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 And murmuring of innumerable bees. |