Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.

Durance, the River

Sir Reginald

By Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855)

’T IS a gay summer morn, and the sunbeams dance

On the glittering waves of the rapid Durance,

Where Sir Reginald’s castle its broad shadow throws

O’er the bay and the linden, the cypress and rose.

And in that rosy bower a lady so bright

Sits telling her beads for her own absent knight,

Whilst her little son plays round the fond mother’s knee,

And the wandering stock-dove is scared by his glee.

’T is a calm summer eve, and the moonbeams dance

On the glittering waves of the rapid Durance,

Where Sir Reginald’s castle its broad shadow throws

O’er the bay and the linden, the cypress and rose.

But the pitiless spoiler is master there,

For gone is the lady, and gone the young heir;

The good knight hath perished beyond the salt sea,

And they, like the stock-dove, poor wanderers be.