Cleve Woods

SWEET Avon glides where clinging rushes seem To stay his course, and, in his flattering glass, Meadows and hills and mellow woodlands pass, A fairer world as imaged in a dream. And sometimes, in a visionary gleam, From out the secret covert's tangled mass, The fisher-bird starts from the rustling grass, A jewelled shuttle shot along the stream. Even here, methinks, when moon-lapped shallows smiled Round isles no bigger than a baby cot, Titania found a glowworm-lighted child, Led far astray, and, with anointing hand Sprinkling clear dew from a forget-me-not, Hailed him the Laureate of her Fairyland.