THE NAIAD

She sits among the iris stalks

Of babbling brooks; and leans for hours

Among the river's lily flowers,

Or on their whiteness walks:

Above dark forest pools, gray rocks

Wall in, she leans with dripping locks,

And listening to the echo, talks

With her own face — Iothera.

There is no forest of the hills,

No valley of the solitude,

Nor fern nor moss, that may elude

Her searching step that stills:

She dreams among the wild-rose brakes

Of fountains that the ripple shakes,

And, dreaming of herself, she fills

The silence with‘ Iothera.’

And every wind that haunts the ways

Of leaf and bough, once having kissed

Her virgin nudity, goes whist

With wonder and amaze.

There blows no breeze which hath not learned

Her name's sweet melody, and yearned

To kiss her mouth that laughs and says,

‘ Iothera, Iothera.’

No wild thing of the wood, no bird,

Or brown or blue, or gold or gray,

Beneath the sun's or moonlight's ray,

That hath not loved and heard;

They are her pupils; she can say

No new thing but, within a day,

They have its music, word for word,

Harmonious as Iothera.

No man who lives and is not wise

With love for common flowers and trees,

Bee, bird, and beast, and brook, and breeze,

And rocks and hills and skies,—

Search where he will,— shall ever see

One flutter of her drapery,

One glimpse of limbs, or hair, or eyes

Of beautiful Iothera.