Epithalamion

Hark, hearer, hear what I do; lend a thought now, make believeWe are leafwhelmed somewhere with the hoodOf some branchy bunchy bushybowered wood,Southern dene or Lancashire clough or Devon cleave,That leans along the loins of hills, where a candycoloured, where a gluegold-brownMarbled river, boisterously beautiful, betweenRoots and rocks is danced and dandled, all in froth and water-blowballs, down.We are there, when we hear a shoutThat the hanging honeysuck, the dogeared hazels in the coverMakes dither, makes hoverAnd the riot of a routOf, it must be, boys from the townBathing: it is summer's sovereign good.

By there comes a listless stranger: beckoned by the noiseHe drops towards the river: unseenSees the bevy of them, how the boysWith dare and with downdolphinry and bellbright bodies huddling out,Are earthworld, airworld, waterworld thorough hurled, all by turn and turn about.

This garland of their gambols flashes in his breastInto such a sudden zestOf summertime joysThat he hies to a pool neighbouring; sees it is the bestThere; sweetest, freshest, shadowiest;Fairyland; silk-beech, scrolled ash, packed sycamore, wild wychelm, hornbeam fretty overstoodBy. Rafts and rafts of flake-leaves light, dealt so, painted on the air,Hang as still as hawk or hawkmoth, as the stars or as the angels there,Like the thing that never knew the earth, never off rootsRose. Here he feasts: lovely all is! No more: off with—down he dingsHis bleachèd both and woolwoven wear:Careless these in coloured wispAll lie tumbled-to; then with loop-locksForward falling, forehead frowning, lips crispOver finger-teasing task, his twiny bootsFast he opens, last he offwringsTill walk the world he can with bare his feetAnd come where lies a coffer, burly all of blocksBuilt of chancequarrièd, selfquainèd rocksAnd the water warbles over into, filleted with glassy grassy quicksilvery shivès and shootsAnd with heavenfallen freshness down from moorland still brims,Dark or daylight on and on. Here he will then, here he will the fleetFlinty kindcold element let break across his limbsLong. Where we leave him, froliclavish while he looks about him, laughs, swims.

Enough now; since the sacred matter that I meanI should be wronging longer leaving it to floatUpon this only gambolling and echoing-of-earth note—What is ... the delightful dene?Wedlock. What the water? Spousal love.

Father, mother, brothers, sisters, friendsInto fairy trees, wild flowers, wood fernsRankèd round the bower