WHEN evening with its breezy air
Succeeds the sultry day,
Let others wear, in crowds and glare,
The tranquil hours away;
But be it mine to seek at eve
Yon lake of heavenly blue,
To lave my weary frame, and cleave
The shining waters through!

When first the fair moon's tender light
Steals up the cloudless sky,
Like plighted maiden to her knight,
Down shelving shores I fly!
My lord, constrained by kingliness,
Hastes not his love to meet,
Yet sends wave-messengers, who press
In homage round my feet.

I hear his gentle, wooing tone, —
I come, my lord, I haste!
Now are his arms about me thrown,
They circle round my waist!
Their fond clasp brings no fearful chill;
Mine own extended wide,
I fling myself, with a joyful thrill,
On the bosom of the tide!

0, what delicious coolness flows
Through every quivering vein!
Fresh as a water-lily grows
My fevered heart again!
The spray leaps up to plash my brow!
My long hair, unconfined,
Is flung, like some young Nereid's, now
To tossing wave and wind!

A new and glorious life is mine, —
I seem to float through heaven,
And mark far down its blue depths shine
The golden stars of even!
Now farther from the shadowy shore,
Right cheerily away!
See, like the plashing of an oar,
My tireless arms' quick play!

And now, where none are nigh to save,
While earth grows dim behind,
I lay my cheek to the kissing wave,
And laugh with the frolicsome wind!
On the billowy swell I lean my breast,
And he fondly beareth me;
I dash the foam from his sparkling crest,
In my wild and careless glee!

Then give to me the wild delight
To dash the billows through!
To bathe at once in moonbeams white,
And in the waters blue!
When, hurrying down from mountain caves,
The cooling night-wind sweeps,
O, a moonlight frolic with the waves,
A plunge through starlit deeps!