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| DO you remember that careless band, | |
| Riding o’er meadow and wet sea-sand, | |
| One autumn day, in a mist of sunshine, | |
| Joyously seeking for fairyland? | |
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| The wind in the tree-tops was scarcely heard, | 5 |
| The streamlet repeated its one silver word, | |
| And far away, o’er the depths of woodland, | |
| Floated the bell of the parson-bird. | |
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| Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips, | |
| Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips; | 10 |
| From mossy branches a faint perfume | |
| Breathed o’er honeyed clematis lips. | |
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| At last we climbed to the ridge on high. | |
| Ah, crystal vision! Dreamland nigh! | |
| Far, far below us the wide Pacific | 15 |
| Slumbered in azure from sky to sky. | |
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| And cloud and shadow across the deep | |
| Wavered, or paused in enchanted sleep, | |
| And eastward the purple-misted islets | |
| Fretted the wave with terrace and steep. | 20 |
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| We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay, | |
| On headlands sheeted with dazzling spray, | |
| And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlorn | |
| That for twenty years had wasted away. | |
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| All was as calm, and pure, and fair, | 25 |
| It seemed the hour of worship there, | |
| Silent, as where the great North Minster | |
| Rises for ever, a visible prayer. | |
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| Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land, | |
| And rode over shingle and silver sand, | 30 |
| For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn, | |
| We sought no farther for Fairyland. | |
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