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!