This little lyric forms a part of "an idyl" of the same title, published in 1855. The poet introduces it in the following manner: "Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he to Italy--too late--too late: . . . . . . . . . Yet the brook he loved . . . . . . . seems, as I re-listen to it, Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, To me that loved him; for, 'O brook,' he says, 'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme, 'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies: 'I come from haunts of coot and hern,'" etc. In reading this poem, observe how strikingly the sound is made to correspond to the sense. 1. =coot.= A wild water-fowl, resembling the duck. 2. =hern.= Heron. 3. =bicker.= To move unsteadily. 4. =thorps.= Small villages. A. S. _thorpe_. From Ger. _trupp_, a troop. 5. =foreland.= A promontory. 6. =hazel covers.= Hazel thickets. 7. =gloom.= Glimmer, shine obscurely. 8. =shingly.= Gravelly. THE LOTOS-EATERS. "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land; "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they came unto a land, In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; And some through wavering lights and shadows broke Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. They saw the gleaming river seaward flow From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, Stood sunset-flushed: and, dewed with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. The charmed sunset lingered low adown In the red West: through mountain clefts the dale Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale And meadow, set with slender galingale; A land where all things always seemed the same! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave To each, but whoso did receive of them, And taste, to him the gushing of the wave Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; And deep-asleep he seemed, yet all awake, And music in his ears his beating heart did make.