LXXVIII. These were the pranks she played among the cities A tale more fit for the weird winter nights, THE WANING MOON. AND like a dying lady, lean and pale, TO THE MOON. ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Among the stars that have a different birth, That finds no object worth its constancy? LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. I. THE fountains mingle with the river, II. See the mountains kiss high heaven, If thou kiss not me? ARETHUSA. 1. ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains, From cloud and from crag, Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks, With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams; The downward ravine 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. 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 Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs below: The beard and the hair Of the River-god were Seen through the torrent's sweep, Of the fleet nymph's flight III. "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 Alpheus rushed behind,— Down the streams of the cloudy wind. IV. 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 net-work of coloured light; And under the caves, Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night : — |