Ay, laugh along, thou cypress-crown’d stream,
Thou echo of the cloud’s kiss on the hills,
A Southern maid with eyes of deep-pool gleam
And cheeks of dimpled whorls and smiles of rills.
Dance, sweet, on sward of violet-crested green,
Marked with the silvery pathway of thy track--
With blue embossing ridge of hills between
And hair mist in the soft wind floating back.
And sweet with soul of aromatic leaves,
Steeped in thy crucible of sun-warmed pool,
And with the warm breath of the bay, that grieves
His love-sigh out amid thy shadows cool.
Dance, sweet, adown thy pathway’s wooded hush,
Laughing to ’scape the red arms of the hills,
Yet bringing on thy cheek the telltale blush,
For chattering tongues of all the old dame mills.
The live-oak bends to kiss thee, and his sigh
Is mingled with the passing of thy charms;
The willows start from hidden coverts by
To clasp thee in their looping, lover arms.
Is that deep shadow dark’ning now thine eye
Repentant sorrow for the willow’s plight,
As though the stern gloom of the cypress nigh
Thou speedest like a Naiad of the night?
O life--life--life--and hast thou found it so,
A journey now in sunlight, now in shade--
A laughter from the willows bending low
A gloom-sob which the cypresses have made?