Poem by Robert Seymour Bridges

Shorter Poems. Book II. 5. “There Is a Hill Beside the Silver Thames”

      There is a hill beside the silver Thames,
    Shady with birch and beech and odorous pine:
    And brilliant underfoot with thousand gems
    Steeply the thickets to his floods decline.
        Straight trees in every place
        Their thick tops interlace,
    And pendant branches trail their foliage fine
        Upon his watery face.

    Swift from the sweltering pasturage he flows:
    His stream, alert to seek the pleasant shade,
    Pictures his gentle purpose, as he goes
    Straight to the caverned pool his toil has made.
        His winter floods lay bare
        The stout roots in the air:
    His summer streams are cool, when they have played
        Among their fibrous hair.

    A rushy island guards the sacred bower,
    And hides it from the meadow, where in peace
    The lazy cows wrench many a scented flower,
    Robbing the golden market of the bees:
        And laden barges float
        By banks of myosote;
    And scented flag and golden flower-de-lys
        Delay the loitering boat.

    And on this side the island, where the pool
    Eddies away, are tangled mass on mass
    The water-weeds, that net the fishes cool,
    And scarce allow a narrow stream to pass;
        Where spreading crowfoot mars
        The drowning nenuphars,
    Waving the tassels of her silken grass
        Below her silver stars.

    But in the purple pool there nothing grows,
    Not the white water-lily spoked with gold;
    Though best she loves the hollows, and well knows
    On quiet streams her broad shields to unfold:
        Yet should her roots but try
        Within these deeps to lie,
    Not her long reaching stalk could ever hold
        Her waxen head so high.

    Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hook
    Within its hidden depths, and ’gainst a tree
    Leaning his rod, reads in some pleasant book,
    Forgetting soon his pride of fishery;
        And dreams, or falls asleep,
        While curious fishes peep
    About his nibbled bait, or scornfully
        Dart off and rise and leap.

    And sometimes a slow figure ’neath the trees,
    In ancient-fashioned smock, with tottering care
    Upon a staff propping his weary knees,
    May by the pathway of the forest fare:
        As from a buried day
        Across the mind will stray
    Some perishing mute shadow,—and unaware
        He passeth on his way.

    Else, he that wishes solitude is safe,
    Whether he bathe at morning in the stream:
    Or lead his love there when the hot hours chafe
    The meadows, busy with a blurring steam;
        Or watch, as fades the light,
        The gibbous moon grow bright,
    Until her magic rays dance in a dream,
        And glorify the night.

    Where is this bower beside the silver Thames?
    O pool and flowery thickets, hear my vow!
    O trees of freshest foliage and straight stems,
    No sharer of my secret I allow:
        Lest ere I come the while
        Strange feet your shades defile;
    Or lest the burly oarsman turn his prow
        Within your guardian isle.

1. Shorter Poems. Book II. 4. Wooing
2. Shorter Poems. Book I. 17. Triolet (All women born are so perverse)
3. Shorter Poems. Book II. 8. Spring. Ode I
4. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 25. “Say Who Is This with Silvered Hair”
5. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 6. April, 1885

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