Andromeda, and Other Poems. Charles Kingsley

      There stood a low and ivied roof,

         As gazing rustics tell,

      In times of chivalry and song

         ‘Yclept the holy well.

      Above the ivies’ branchlets gray

         In glistening clusters shone;

      While round the base the grass-blades bright

         And spiry foxglove sprung.

      The brambles clung in graceful bands,

         Chequering the old gray stone

      With shining leaflets, whose bright face

         In autumn’s tinting shone.

      Around the fountain’s eastern base

         A babbling brooklet sped,

      With sleepy murmur purling soft

         Adown its gravelly bed.

      Within the cell the filmy ferns

         To woo the clear wave bent;

      And cushioned mosses to the stone

         Their quaint embroidery lent.

      The fountain’s face lay still as glass—

         Save where the streamlet free

      Across the basin’s gnarled lip

         Flowed ever silently.

      Above the well a little nook

         Once held, as rustics tell,

      All garland-decked, an image of

         The Lady of the Well.

      They tell of tales of mystery,

         Of darkling deeds of woe;

      But no! such doings might not brook

         The holy streamlet’s flow.

      Oh tell me not of bitter thoughts,

         Of melancholy dreams,

      By that fair fount whose sunny wall

         Basks in the western beams.

      When last I saw that little stream,

         A form of light there stood,

      That seemed like a precious gem,

         Beneath that archway rude:

      And as I gazed with love and awe

         Upon that sylph-like thing,

      Methought that airy form must be

         The fairy of the spring.

      I would have loved: there are no mates in heaven;