Lightly along her liquid path she presses;
Nor yet the toil her buoyant frame distresses.
Anon, as patiently she sped,
There came as of itself into her head
An old and simple lay,
She oft had sung in many a happier day,
About a maid her home for love forsaking;
And the recurring rhythm making
The effort of volition less,
And so preventing weariness,—
Though scarce a meaning to its phrases linking—
She kept into her spirit drinking
The metre's chime—a kind of rest from thinking;
And steadily aside the crystal waters flinging,

Kept murmuring the old rhyme in time—she had no breath for singing:—