ARETHUSA. I. ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains, From cloud and from crag, With many a jag, Shepherding her bright fountains. With her rainbow locks Her steps paved with green The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams: She went, ever singing, In murmurs as soft as sleep; The Earth seemed to love her, As she lingered towards the deep. II. 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 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 Over heaps of unvalued stones; Which amid the streams Weave a net-work of coloured light; And under the caves, Are as green as the forest's night: And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts They passed to their Dorian home. V. 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; Beneath the Ortygian shore; Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more. 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, II. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets (Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth) 5 10 Its mother's face with heaven's collected tears, 15 III. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured May, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; IV. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, With moonlight beams of their own watery light; 20 25 30 V. Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 35 Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours 40 |