Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Rhaicos went daily; but the nymph as oft, Invisible. To play at love, she knew, Stopping its breathings when it breathes most soft,

Is sweeter than to play on any pipe.
She play'd on his : she fed upon his sighs;
They pleas'd her when they gently wav'd
her hair,

Cooling the pulses of her purple veins,
And when her absence brought them out,
they pleas'd.

Even among the fondest of them all, What mortal or immortal maid is more Content with giving happiness than pain? One day he was returning from the wood Despondently. She pitied him, and said

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

LITTLE AGLAË

TO HER FATHER, ON HER STATUE BEING CALLED LIKE HER

FATHER! the little girl we see
Is not, I fancy, so like me;
You never hold her on your knee.

When she came home, the other day,
You kiss'd her; but I cannot say
She kiss'd you first and ran away.

TO A CYCLAMEN

I COME to visit thee agen,
My little flowerless cyclamen ;
To touch the hand, almost to press,
That cheer'd thee in thy loneliness.
What could thy careful guardian find
Of thee in form, of me in mind,
What is there in us rich or rare,
To make us claim a moment's care?
Unworthy to be so carest,

We are but withering leaves at best.

DIRCE

STAND close around, ye Stygian set,
With Dirce in one boat convey'd,
Or Charon, seeing, may forget
That he is old, and she a shade.

AN INVOCATION

WE are what suns and winds and waters make us ;

The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills

Fashion and win their nursling with their

smiles.

But where the land is dim from tyranny,
There tiny pleasures occupy the place
Of glories and of duties; as the feet
Of fabled faeries when the sun goes down
Trip o'er the grass where wrestlers strove
by day.

Then Justice, call'd the Eternal One above,
Is more inconstant than the buoyant form
That burst into existence from the froth
Of ever-varying ocean: what is best

Then becomes worst; what loveliest, most

deform'd.

The heart is hardest in the softest climes,
The passions flourish, the affections die.
O thou vast tablet of these awful truths,
That fillest all the space between the seas,
Spreading from Venice's deserted courts
To the Tarentine and Hydruntine mole,
What lifts thee up? what shakes thee? 't is
the breath

Of God. Awake, ye nations! spring to life!
Let the last work of his right hand appear
Fresh with his image, Man.

FROM "GEBIR"

TAMAR AND THE NYMPH

""T WAS evening, though not sunset, and the tide,

Level with these green meadows, seem'd yet higher :

'Twas pleasant, and I loosen'd from my neck

The pipe you gave me, and began to play. O that I ne'er had learn'd the tuneful art!

It always brings us enemies or love.
Well, I was playing, when above the waves
Some swimmer's head methought I saw
ascend;

I, sitting still, survey'd it with my pipe
Awkwardly held before my lips half-clos'd.
Gebir! it was a Nymph! a Nymph divine!
I cannot wait describing how she came,
How I was sitting, how she first assum'd
The sailor; of what happen'd there remains
Enough to say, and too much to forget.
The sweet deceiver stepp'd upon this bank
Before I was aware; for with surprise
Moments fly rapid as with love itself.
Stooping to tune afresh the hoarsen'd reed,
I heard a rustling, and where that arose
My glance first lighted on her nimble feet.
Her feet resembled those long shells ex-
plor'd

By him who to befriend his steed's dim sight
Would blow the pungent powder in the eye.
Her eyes too! O immortal gods! her eyes
Resembled — what could they resemble?
what

Ever resemble those? Even her attire Was not of wonted woof nor vulgar art:

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Shake one and it awakens, then apply
Its polish'd lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
And I have others given me by the nymphs,
Of sweeter sound than any pipe you have:
But we, by Neptune! for no pipe contend;
This time a sheep I win, a pipe the next.'
Now came she forward eager to engage,
But first her dress, her bosom then survey'd
And heav'd it, doubting if she could deceive.
Her bosom seem'd, inclos'd in haze like
heaven,

To baffle touch, and rose forth undefin'd;
Above her knee she drew the robe succinct,
Above her breast, and just below her arms.
This will preserve my breath when tightly

bound,

If struggle and equal strength should so constrain.'

Thus, pulling hard to fasten it, she spake, And, rushing at me, clos'd: I thrill'd throughout

And seem'd to lessen and shrink up with cold.

Again with violent impulse gush'd my blood, And hearing nought external, thus absorb'd, I heard it, rushing through each turbid vein, Shake my unsteady swimming sight in air. Yet with unyielding though uncertain arms

I clung around her neck; the vest beneath
Rustled against our slippery limbs entwin'd:
Often mine springing with eluded force
Started aside and trembled till replaced :
And when I most succeeded, as I thought,
My bosom and my throat felt so compress'd
That life was almost quivering on my lips.
Yet nothing was there painful: these are
signs

Of secret arts and not of human might;
What arts I cannot tell; I only know
My eyes grew dizzy and my strength
decay'd;

I was indeed o'ercome with what regret,
And more, with what confusion, when I

reach'd

The fold, and yielding up the sheep, she cried,

This pays a shepherd to a conquering maid.'

She smil'd, and more of pleasure than disdain

Was in her dimpled chin and liberal lip, And eyes that languish'd, lengthening, just like love.

She went away; I on the wicker gate Leant, and could follow with my eyes alone

The sheep she carried easy as a cloak ;
But when I heard its bleating, as I did,
And saw, she hastening on, its hinder feet
Struggle, and from her snowy shoulder slip,
One shoulder its poor efforts had unveil❜d,
Then all my passions mingling fell in tears;
Restless then ran I to the highest ground
To watch her; she was gone; gone down
the tide ;

And the long moonbeam on the hard wet sand

Lay like a jasper column half uprear'd."

TO YOUTH

WHERE art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seem'd to whisper near
That thou and I must part;
I doubted it; I felt no fear,
No weight upon the heart.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »