"A brave old house! a garden full of bees,
Large dropping poppies, and Queen hollyhocks,
With butterflies for crowns--tree peonies
And pinks and goldilocks.

"Go, when the shadow of your house is long
Upon the garden--when some new-waked bird.
Pecking and fluttering, chirps a sudden song,
And not a leaf is stirred;

"But every one drops dew from either edge
Upon its fellow, while an amber ray
Slants up among the tree-tops like a wedge
Of liquid gold--to play

"Over and under them, and so to fall
Upon that lane of water lying below--
That piece of sky let in, that you do call
A pond, but which I know

"To be a deep and wondrous world; for I
Have seen the trees within it--marvellous things
So thick no bird betwixt their leaves could fly
But she would smite her wings;--

"Go there, I say; stand at the water's brink,
And shoals of spotted barbel you shall see
Basking between the shadows--look, and think
'This beauty is for me;