Poems (King)/Images
Images
I STOOD upon a singing streamlet's marge
Unkissed of skiff or barge,
And saw an ashen boulder palely gleam
Within the glassy stream,
Cleaving the murmuring brooklet's silken flow,
To myriad lights below,
Until from out the boulder's stony heart
The waters seemed to start.
Then swift arose before my musing ken
The Hebrew leader with his fainting men
In desert wastes untrod,
And streams that burst at Moses' smiting rod.
Then, as I gazed, the sun its beams divine
Poured down like golden wine,
And broken ripples, catching amber gleams,
Seemed liquid light of dreams,
Or from the darkling rock took happy flight
Gay butterflies of light!
Unkissed of skiff or barge,
And saw an ashen boulder palely gleam
Within the glassy stream,
Cleaving the murmuring brooklet's silken flow,
To myriad lights below,
Until from out the boulder's stony heart
The waters seemed to start.
Then swift arose before my musing ken
The Hebrew leader with his fainting men
In desert wastes untrod,
And streams that burst at Moses' smiting rod.
Then, as I gazed, the sun its beams divine
Poured down like golden wine,
And broken ripples, catching amber gleams,
Seemed liquid light of dreams,
Or from the darkling rock took happy flight
Gay butterflies of light!