I DREAM'D that, as I wander'd by the way,   Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring; And gentle odours led my steps astray,   Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay   Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets;   Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets;   Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—   Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth— Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,   Green cowbind and the moonlight-colour'd May, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine   Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,   With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; And flowers, azure, black, and streak'd with gold, Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge   There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge,   And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge   With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers   I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues which in their natural bowers   Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours   Within my hand;—and then, elate and gay, I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it—O! to whom?