A PICTURE.
THERE is a fountain of the purest wave— It ever floweth full and freshly on, Laughing beneath the fairest light of heaven, And chiming, like the tender voice of birds, Within a dewy thicket, when the morn Comes forth in beauty, and the winds awake To sip the moisture in the lily's bell.
The spring is hidden in a silent cave, The shrine of darkness, and of loneliness, And then it stealeth out to meet the sun, And shine beneath his brightness, and reveal The crystal of its purity, and play, In dove-like undulations, with the airs That gently come and kiss it, with a breath Perfumed among the roses, till they lend A sweetness to the waters, like the rills That spout from marble wells in Asian bowers.
And where it cometh forth to meet the light, The rock is tapestried in mossy green,