Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Browning. 18121889717. Thus the Mayne glideth
THUS the Mayne glideth | |
Where my Love abideth; | |
Sleep ‘s no softer: it proceeds | |
On through lawns, on through meads, | |
On and on, whate’er befall, | 5 |
Meandering and musical, | |
Though the niggard pasturage | |
Bears not on its shaven ledge | |
Aught but weeds and waving grasses | |
To view the river as it passes, | 10 |
Save here and there a scanty patch | |
Of primroses too faint to catch | |
A weary bee…. And scarce it pushes | |
Its gentle way through strangling rushes | |
Where the glossy kingfisher | 15 |
Flutters when noon-heats are near, | |
Glad the shelving banks to shun, | |
Red and steaming in the sun, | |
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat | |
Burrows, and the speckled stoat; | 20 |
Where the quick sandpipers flit | |
In and out the marl and grit | |
That seems to breed them, brown as they: | |
Naught disturbs its quiet way, | |
Save some lazy stork that springs, | 25 |
Trailing it with legs and wings, | |
Whom the shy fox from the hill | |
Rouses, creep he ne’er so still. |