The time was toward the heats of June,
And all the mellow afternoon
With my ripe heart was just in tune,
As I lay a-dreaming.
For yes, my heart was ripe with love;
The very airs that stirr’d the grove
Blew kisses o’er me from above,
As I lay a-dreaming.
The river glided smoothly by—
The blue bright bird shot silently
Between my covert and the sky
As I lay a-dreaming.
By drooping alders doubly bound,
The water slid without a sound
Until, below the rooted ground
Where I lay a-dreaming.
It smote a bank of ruddy loam,
Where, underneath, a secret dome
Of pebbles fretted it in foam
As I lay a-dreaming.
But further, where the stream was wide,
The kine were standing side by side
Cooling their knees against the tide,
As I lay a-dreaming.
And still beyond, were orchards green,
Red cottage roofs, and in between
Bright meadows, where the scythe had been
While I lay a-dreaming.
And over all, the hollow hills,
Fill’d with that purple light, which fills
Our hearts too with such regal thrills,
As we lie a-dreaming.
But my low nest was shut within
To such a leafy calm, wherein
My thoughts went freely out and in
As I lay a-dreaming.
The squirrel on his branch at play—
The blossom falling from the may—
No creatures moved but such as they,
Where I lay a-dreaming.
So sweet a spot, so soft a breeze—
Such beauty of enfolding trees!
Ah! what could mar my luscious ease
As I lay a-dreaming?
A country wench came by, to see
Whereas her missing kine should be;
And this is what she said to me
As I lay a-dreaming:
“Git up, ye dawdlin’ gaspin’ loon!
Ah’d liever gang mah waas to t’ toon
An’ fettle t’ sheep this efternoon
Nor lig theer a-dreamin’!”
I look’d at her in strange surprise:
I could not think in anywise
She was an angel from the skies,
Though I lay a-dreaming.
For oh, too deep was the disguise:
The hand with which she veil’d her eyes
Seem’d like a Titan’s hand in size,
As I lay a-dreaming.
She was a woman though, and young—
The very creature I had sung
In fancy, with a poet’s tongue,
As I lay a-dreaming.
Therefore I spake and answer’d her:
“Maiden, you do but come to stir
My soul, and make it joyfuller
To lie here a-dreaming.
“For you too, gracious as a fawn,
By ferny glade and mossy lawn
Full oft have loved, at eve or dawn
To lie thus a-dreaming.
“And all the interwoven grace
Of sound and hue that fill’d the place
Has doubtless ‘passed into your face,’
As you lay a-dreaming.
“Oh, you then, nursed in summer woods,
And lull’d by rolling waterfloods,
Will give me leave, in these high moods,
To lie here a-dreaming.”
The maiden stared, but answered not:
Yet, striding slowly from the spot,
I heard her say—I know not what—
As I lay a-dreaming.
“Yon chap’s a snivellin’ tiv hissell,
An’ wat he meeans Ah canna tell;
He’s daft, Ah doot, or drunk wi’ yell
Te lig theer a-dreamin’.”