Chasing the wandering sound from shade to shade.
Or, if she conned the daily task in vain,
A word from Edmund made the lesson plain.


V.

Thus years rolled by in innocence and truth,
And playful childhood melted into youth,
As dies the dawn in rainbows, ray by ray
In blushing beauty stealing into day.
And thus too passed, unnoticed and unknown,
The sports of childhood, fleeting one by one.
Like broken dreams, of which we neither know
From whence they come, nor mark we when they go.
Yet would they stray where Tweed's fair waters glide,
As we have wandered--fondly side by side;
And when dun gloaming's shadows o'er it stole
As silence visible--until the soul
Grew tranquil as the scene--then would they trace
The deep'ning shadows on the river's face--
A voiceless world, where glimmered, downward far,
Inverted mountain, tree, and cloud, and star.
'Twas Edmund's choicest scene, and he would dwell
On it, till he grew eloquent, and tell
Its beauties o'er and o'er, until the maid
Knew every gorgeous tint and mellowed shade
Which evening from departed sunbeams threw,
And as a painter on the waters drew.