ARETHUSA.

ARETHUSA arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains,—
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams ;-

Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams :
And gliding and springing

She went, ever singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep;

The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,

As she lingered towards the deep.

Then Alpheus bold,

On his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains strook;

And opened a chasm

In the rocks;—with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind

It concealed behind

The urns of the silent snow,

And earthquake and thunder

Did rend in sunder

N

The bars of the springs below:
The beard and the hair
Of the River-god were
Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph's flight

To the brink of the Dorian deep.

"Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair !” The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream:

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main

Alpheus rushed behind,—
As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers

Sit on their pearlèd thrones,
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods,

Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams

Which amid the streams

Weave a network of coloured light;
And under the caves,
Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night :-
Outspeeding the shark,

And the sword-fish dark,

Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rifts

Of the mountain clifts
They past to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep

In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noon-tide they flow
Through the woods below

And the meadows of Asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore ;-

Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky

When they love but live no more.

SONG OF PROSERPINE.

WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA.

SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth,

Thou from whose immortal bosom,
Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.

If with mists of evening dew

Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow, in scent and hue,

Fairest children of the hours, Breathe thine influence most divine On thine own child, Proserpine.

Poems of Home Life.

TO MARY SHELLEY.

O MARY dear, that you were here
With your brown eyes bright and clear,
And your sweet voice, like a bird

Singing love to its lone mate

In the ivy bower disconsolate;
Voice the sweetest ever heard!

And your brow more

Mary dear, come to me soon,
I am not well whilst thou art far;
As sunset to the spherèd moon,
As twilight to the western star,
Thou, beloved, art to me.

O Mary dear, that you were here;
The Castle echo whispers "Here!"