Poem by George Darley

Lenimina Laborum. 29. In an Album

Day-dreaming one-tide, upon a sunny mountain,
When nought but the wild-birds and waterfalls were near.
Heard I a voice like the music of a fountain,
Its language as liquid, its melody as clear.

Murmuring deeply, the stream methought addrest me,
(If that which addrest me indeed were but a stream):
"Say, hath ill-fortune, or idleness, possest thee,
To lose all thy life in a melancholy dream?"

"Buoyant and gladsome, my step was free as thine is,
Wlien fresh from the life-spring of Nature," I replied;
"Streamlet! thy course will perchance be slow as mine is.
And lonely like me thro' the valleys thou wilt glide:

Oft at a green bank delaying thy blue motion,
Thou'lt stretch thee to sleep, with a scarcely-heaving breast;
World-wearied, sun-sick, thou'lt wind at length to ocean.
And seek in the loss of thy being to be blest" 

1. Lenimina Laborum. 27. The Free-Booter
2. Lenimina Laborum. 12. Memento Mori
3. Epigram - Written in an Album
4. Lenimina Laborum. 43. On a Fountain
5. My Own Epitaph

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