O my gorgeous-mailéd knight,
Whom a finger-tip can fright!
At my touch upstarting shy,
With a silvery-rolling eye,
Leaping, winding, sudden splashing,
This way dashing, that way flashing!
I’ll not harm thee; lie thou still;
Heave not fin nor glittering gill;
Globe-kept captive, thou shalt find
Fellow-feeling makes me kind.
I, too, own a hermit’s heart,
Swift at aught unknown to start:
And I, too, am walled about,
Though the sunbeams find me out.
Scarce I see the stirring world
More than thou the brook breeze-curled,
But must make, like thee, delight
From a few small pebbles white;
Trifles, that may fancy bear
To some rippled pleasance rare.
Let thy thought, free-swimming, make
This, thy globe, a spring-fed lake,
And with water crystal-bright
I’ll refresh it morn and night,
That such dreams the easier be:
Deal, sweet Fates! as well by me.