I KNOW that I'm like, yet I am not, a snake!
'Tis true that I glisten by boil and by brake,
That I dart out and in, can glide, quiver and coil
As swift as the lightning, but softer than oil,
Yet a creature more innocent never was drawn
From the gray of cool shadows to bask in the dawn!
If I pause by a brook the rock-currents divide,
I grow silvery-white as the foam of its tide;
If 'mid dew-freshened meadows at sunrise I pass,
There's a shaft of pure emerald shot through the grass.
When to gay garden-closes I joyfully turn,
'Tis mine with all hues, of their roses to burn;
I reflect each bright blush that the petals have won
Of their young virgin-flowers from the kiss of the sun,
My skin's a clear mirror, a glass of the elves,
In which all lovely tints can smile back on themselves!
Stranger still! for on ugliness mirrored therein,
Though it tarnish a moment, this magical skin,
On the dark and uncouth some slight beauty's bestowed;
Why, even that dull little hunchback, the toad,
I endow with faint outlines of sweetness and grace,
While the newt, glancing down on his lop-sided face,
Reflected,--in pity,--by softened degrees,
Almost dreams he was formed by kind Nature to please!
Ah, therefore, sweet maiden, shrink not when you see
My lithe body reposing by streamlet or tree;
But kneel down where I rest, and all mellowed behold
Your eyes of deep blue, and your ringlets of gold,
In my miniature mirror, my glass of the elves,
Wherein all lovely things can smile back on themselves!
