DOWN THE SONGO.

Floating!

Floating — and all the stillness waits

And listens at the ivory gates,

Full of a dim uncertain presage

Of some strange, undelivered message.

There is no sound save from the bush

The alto of the shy wood-thrush,

And ever and anon the dip

Of a lazy oar.

The rhythmic drowsiness keeps time

To hazy subtleties of rhyme

That seem to slip

Through the lulled soul to seek the sleepy shore.

The idle clouds go floating by;

Above us sky, beneath us sky;

The sun shines on us as we lie

Floating.

It is a dream.

It is a dream, my love; see how

The ripples quiver at the prow,

And all the long reflections shake

Unsteadily beneath the lake.

The mists about the uplands show

Dim violet towers that come and go.

Phantasmagoric palaces

Rise trembling there,

As though one breath of waking weather

Would crash their airy walls together

With sudden stress,

While silent detonations shook the air —

Vast fabrics toppling to the ground

And vanishing without a sound.

Ah, love, these are not what we deem;

It is a dream.

Let us dream on, then,—— dream and die

Ere the dream pass.

Let us for once, like idle flowers,

Let slip the unregarded hours,

Like the wise flowers that lie

Unfretted by a feeble thought,

Future and past alike forgot,

Drinking the dew contentedly

In the cool grass.

Look yonder where the clouds float; could we glide

As they, across the sky's blue shoreless tide,

What better were it than to dream

Across yon lake and into this still stream?

Trees and a glimpse of sky!

And the slow river, quiet as a pool!

And thou and I — and thou and I —

Kiss me! How soft the air is and how cool!