My heart was otherwhere
While the organ fill'd the air,
And the priest, with outspread hands, bless'd the people with a prayer;
But, when rising to go homeward, with a mild and saint-like shine
Gleam'd a face of airy beauty with its heavenly eyes on mine-
Gleam'd and vanish'd in a moment. Oh, the face was like to thine,
Ere you perish'd, Barbara!
When last I saw them, dearest, it was in another place;
You came running forth to meet me with my love-gift on your wrist,
And a cursed river kill'd thee, aided by a murderous mist.
Oh, a purple mark, of agony was on the mouth I kiss'd,
These dreary years eleven
When I last saw thee, Barbara!
Have you pined within your heaven,
And is this the only glimpse of earth that in that time was given?
And have you passed unheeded all the fortunes of your race-
Your father's grave, your sister's child, your mother's quiet face-
To gaze on one who worshipp'd not within a kneeling place?
Of much that's dark and nether, much that's holiest and best.
Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore,
The hunger of my soul were still'd; for Death has told you more
Than the melancholy world doth know, things deeper than all lore
Will you teach me, Barbara?
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and growing,
And running and stunning,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And glittering and flittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And dinning and spinning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And thundering and floundering,
And falling and crawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and winkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling, And clattering and battering and shattering, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
Retreating and meeting and beating and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling and boiling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and
jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing,
And so never ending but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once, and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And in this way the water comes down at Lodore.
-ROBERT SOUTHEY.
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