THE HAPPY VALLEY. 
189 
The golden-belted bees hummed in the air, 
The tall, silk grasses bent and waved along; 
The trees slept in the sleeping sunbeam’s glare, 
The dreamy river chimed its undersong, 
And took its own free course without a care: 
Amid the boughs did lute-tongued songsters throng, 
And the green valley throbbed beneath their lays, 
' * « * 
While echo echo chased, through many a leafy maze. 
« 
Sweet shapes were there, the Spirits of the Flowers, 
Sent down to see the summer-beauties dress, 
And feed their fragrant mouths with silver showers ; 
Their eyes peeped out from many a green recess, 
And their fair forms made light the thick-set bowers: 
The very flowers seemed eager to caress 
Such living sisters ; and the boughs, long-leaved, 
Clustered to catch the sighs their pearl-flushed bosoms 
heaved. 
One through her long loose hair was backward peeping, 
Or throwing, with raised arm, the locks aside; 
Another high a pile of flowers was heaping, 
Or looking Love askance, and, when descried, 
