Page:Poems Cook.djvu/227

But there is one, in quiet lonely mood,
 Taking a shadowy path apart from all;
Choosing the mossy margin, where the flood
 Leads to the loud and dashing waterfall.

Slow, lingering—now to gaze upon the tide,
 And watch the swelling ripples gliding by;
Now bending o'er the brooklet's shelving side,
 With stiller breathing and a closer eye.

He muses with a long and earnest glance,
 Noting the things his playmates never heed;
Pausing to see the water-lilies dance
 To the soft music of the wave-splash'd reed.

He wonders none beside himself can find
 Something to wonder at in woods and streams;
And knows not that his fresh, untutor'd mind
 Is dreaming busily the poet's dreams.

He feels the immortal light of Spirit live
 Within his breast—but knows not that in years
To come that warm and flashing ray will give
 The brightest rainbow through the bitterest tears.

Life's sands run on.—The wayward child is now
 All that foreboding tongues erst prophesied;
Reflection's cloud has darken'd on the brow,
 And all youth promised, Time has not denied.

The cheeks have less of roundness and of red,
 The grey eye has become more softly deep;
The lips are thinner, but the spirit shed
 Around them tells that Feeling does not sleep.

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