Coleridge's Cristabel

Mark yon runnel, how -tis flowing,
Like a sylvan spirit dreaming
Of the spring-blooms near it blowing,
And the sunlight o-er it beaming-
Bright from bank to bank, or growing
Darkly inter-freaked, when streaming
Where some willowy shade hangs bending
O-er it in green mingled masses-
Lights and shades and blossoms glowing,
All for greater beauty blending
In its vision as it passes.
Where that shelving rock is spied,
There, with a smooth warbling slide,
It lapses down into a cool
And brimming, not o-erflowing, pool
Then between its narrowed banks,
Playing merry gurgling pranks,
It gushes, till a channel-d stone
Gives it a more strenuous tone.

Then its bright curves flashing are,
Like a mighty scimitar
Dropt by some Jove-vanquished god,
And sunk into the yielding sod;
Or betwixt thick-reeded beaches
It whispers low mysterious speeches;
Or, with an underswirling spread
Over a wide pebbled bed,
It bubbles with a gentle pleasure
Ere some new mood change the measure.

Such a runnel typeth well
The sweet wild verse of Christabel.
And if, all suddenly, at length,
It sank, a broken end to make
In some subterranean lake,
A further type we might behold
Of the story, half untold.

But what might picture to our view
The wonder-world it warbles through!