Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

I. One’s Own Mood Reflected in a Day-dream

William Allingham (1824–1889)

CHECKERED with woven shadows as I lay

Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,

I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay

Most idly floating in the noontide beam.

Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway

Of ocean’s giant pulsing; and the Dream,

Buoyed like the young moon on a level stream

Of greenish vapor at decline of day,

Swam airily, watching the distant flocks

Of sea-gulls, whilst a foot, in careless sweep,

Touched the clear-trembling cool with tiny shocks

Faint-circling; till at last he dropped asleep,

Lulled by the hush-song of the glittering deep,

Lap-lapping drowsily the heated rocks.