Ontario Readers Third Book, The

<h2><SPAN name="Meeting" id="Meeting"></SPAN>THE MEETING OF THE WATERS</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span>There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet<br/></span> <span>As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;<br/></span> <span>Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,<br/></span> <span>Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span>Yet it <em>was</em> not that Nature had shed o'er the scene<br/></span> <span>Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;<br/></span> <span>'Twas <em>not</em> her soft magic of streamlet or hill,<br/></span> <span>Oh! no,&mdash;it was something more exquisite still.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span>'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,<br/></span> <span>Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,<br/></span> <span>And who felt how the best charms of Nature improve,<br/></span> <span>When we see them reflected from looks that we love.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span>Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest<br/></span> <span>In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,<br/></span> <span>Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,<br/></span> <span>And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.<br/></span></div> </div> <p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Moore</span></p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />