Slipping down,
Calling still--Oh hear! Oh follow!
Follow--follow!
Down through glen and ferny hollow,
Lit with patches of the sky,
Shining through the trees so high,
Hand in hand we went together,
In the golden, golden weather
Of the May;
While the fleet wing of the swallow
Flashing by, called--follow--follow!
And we followed through the day:
Speaking low--
Speaking often not at all
To the brooklet's crystal call,
With our lingering feet and slow--
Slow, and pausing here and there
For a flower, or a fern,
For the lovely maiden-hair;
Hearing voices in the air,
Calling faintly down the burn.
Still the streamlet slid away,
Singing, smiling, dimpling down
To a mossy nook and brown,
Under bending boughs of May;
Where the nodding wind-flower grows,
And the coolwort's lovely pink,
Brooding o'er the brooklet's brink
Dips and blushes like a rose.
And the faint smell of the mo