The Naiad

She sits among the iris stalks     Of babbling brooks; and leans for hours     Among the river's lily flowers,     Or on their whiteness walks:     Above dark forest pools, gray rocks     Wall in, she leans with dripping locks,     And listening to the echo, talks     With her own face Iothera.     There is no forest of the hills,     No valley of the solitude,     Nor fern nor moss, that may elude     Her searching step that stills:     She dreams among the wild-rose brakes     Of fountains that the ripple shakes,     And, dreaming of herself, she fills     The silence with 'Iothera.'     And every wind that haunts the ways     Of leaf and bough, once having kissed     Her virgin nudity, goes whist     With wonder and amaze.     There blows no breeze which hath not learned     Her name's sweet melody, and yearned     To kiss her mouth that laughs and says,     'Iothera, Iothera.'     No wild thing of the wood, no bird,     Or brown or blue, or gold or gray,     Beneath the sun's or moonlight's ray,     That hath not loved and heard;     They are her pupils; she can say     No new thing but, within a day,     They have its music, word for word,     Harmonious as Iothera.     No man who lives and is not wise     With love for common flowers and trees,     Bee, bird, and beast, and brook, and breeze,     And rocks and hills and skies,     Search where he will, shall ever see     One flutter of her drapery,     One glimpse of limbs, or hair, or eyes     Of beautiful Iothera.