O remain, dear one, I love you,
Stay with me in my fair land,
For your dreamings and longings
Only I can understand.
You, who like a prince reclining
O'er the pool with heaven starred;
You who gaze up from the water
With such earnest deep regard.
Stay, for where the lapping wavelets
Shake the tall and tasseled grass,
I will make you hear in secret
How the furtive chamois pass.
Oh, I see you wrapped in magic,
Hear your murmur low and sweet,
As you break the shallow water
With your slender naked feet;
See you thus amidst the ripples
Which the moon's pale beams engage,
And your years seem but an instant,
And each instant seems an age."
Thus spoke the woods in soft entreaty;
Arching boughs above me bent,
But I whistled high, and laughing
Out into the open went.
Now though e'en I roamed that country
How could I its charm recall...
Where has boyhood gone, I wonder,
With its pool and woods and all?