Page:Themes and variations (IA themesvariations00wils).pdf/75
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Fishing.
63
A face of sunshine and a brow of shade!
Brown eyes that seem to question and entreat,
Hair, half of gold and half of hazel made,
An accent like the streamlet, wild and sweet.
Are these the tokens of as fair a mind?
The manifest and expression of the soul?
Or are they but a portrait, mutely kind,
Unanswering beauty of the painter’s scroll?
I cannot guess; but sweet it is to glide,
Dreaming beside her, on this dreaming tide.
Brown eyes that seem to question and entreat,
Hair, half of gold and half of hazel made,
An accent like the streamlet, wild and sweet.
Are these the tokens of as fair a mind?
The manifest and expression of the soul?
Or are they but a portrait, mutely kind,
Unanswering beauty of the painter’s scroll?
I cannot guess; but sweet it is to glide,
Dreaming beside her, on this dreaming tide.
But now the very clouds are standing still;
The sea-gulls scream and balance in the strait,
And flash above the purple-pillared hill
That guards our harbour’s narrow rocky gate.
And there the iron-shod ocean messenger,
Over the shadowy meadows of the bay
Slips like a stag; and from her forebead clear
As hawthorn blossoms in an English May,
Scatters the spimning fountains of the spray.
We must go home; the wave sings drowsily,
If I should speak, what would her answer be?
The sea-gulls scream and balance in the strait,
And flash above the purple-pillared hill
That guards our harbour’s narrow rocky gate.
And there the iron-shod ocean messenger,
Over the shadowy meadows of the bay
Slips like a stag; and from her forebead clear
As hawthorn blossoms in an English May,
Scatters the spimning fountains of the spray.
We must go home; the wave sings drowsily,
If I should speak, what would her answer be?