Never sleeping, still awake,
Pleasing most when most I speak;
The delight of old and young,
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Never sleeping, still awake,
Pleasing most when most I speak;
The delight of old and young,
Though I speak without a tongue.
Nought but one thing can confound me,
Many voices joining round me,
Then I fret, and rave, and gabble,
Like the labourers of Babel.

Hark! to the hurried question of Despair
"Where is my child?"--An echo answers--
"Where?"

Hark! to the hurried question of Despair
"Where is my child?"--An echo answers--
"Where?"

And more than echoes talk along the walls.

And more than echoes talk along the walls.

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, read more

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Like--but oh! how different!

Like--but oh! how different!

The birds chaunt melody on every bush,
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun,
The green read more

The birds chaunt melody on every bush,
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun,
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a checkered shadow on the ground;
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns,
As if a double hunt were heard at once,
Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;
And after conflict such as was supposed
The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,
When with a happy storm they were surprised,
And curtained with a counsel-keeping cave,
We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,
Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds
Be unto us as is a nurse's song
Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.

Even Echo speaks not on these radiant moors.
- Barry Cornwall (pseudonym of Bryan Waller Procter),

Even Echo speaks not on these radiant moors.
- Barry Cornwall (pseudonym of Bryan Waller Procter),

Echo waits with art and care
And will the faults of song repair.

Echo waits with art and care
And will the faults of song repair.

What would it profit thee to be the first
Of echoes, tho thy tongue should live forever,
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What would it profit thee to be the first
Of echoes, tho thy tongue should live forever,
A thing that answers, but hath not a thought
As lasting but as senseless as a stone.