Glass. 
 Book—* 
 
 
 
AMARYNTHUS, 
 
 THE 
 
 NYMPHOLEPT. 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 43* 
 
Printed by A. and R. Spottiswoode, 
 Printers- Street, London. 
 

 AMARYNTHUS, 
 
 THE 
 
 NYMPHOLEPT: 
 
 A PASTORAL DRAMA, 
 
 IN THREE ACTS. 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 £J 
 
 Et vos agrest&m praesentia numina Fauni, 
 
 Ferte simul Faunique pedem, Dryadesque puellae ; 
 
 Munera vestra cano. Virg. Georg.i. 10, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, & BROWN, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1821. 
 

 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 1 he NvjX(poA>]7rToi of the Greeks, and the Lym- 
 phati or Lymph atici of the Romans, were men 
 supposed to be possessed by the Nymphs, and 
 driven to phrensy, either from having seen one 
 of those mysterious beings, or from the mad- 
 dening effect of the oracular caves in which 
 they resided. Plutarch particularly mentions 
 that the Nymphs Sphragitides haunted a cave 
 on Mount Cithaeron, in Bceotia, in which there 
 had formerly been an oraele, and where, from 
 the inspiration they diffused, Nympholepsy be- 
 came an endemic complaint. According to 
 Festus, it was formerly thought that all those 
 
VI PREFACE, 
 
 who had merely seen the figure of a nymph in a 
 fountain were seized with madness during the 
 remainder of their lives. Ovid himself dreaded 
 this event, as appears by the lines in the fourth 
 book of his Fasti. 
 
 " Nee Dryadas, nee nos videamus labra Dianae, 
 Nee Faunum medio cum premit aura die ;" 
 
 and Propertius also alludes to the same belief, 
 when, in describing the happiness of the early 
 ages, he exclaims, 
 
 " Nee fuerat nudas poena videre deas." 
 
 It was the popular opinion throughout the 
 whole of Greece, that the nymphs occasionally 
 appeared to mortals, and that the consequences 
 of beholding them were generally to be depre- 
 cated: the result among such a superstitious 
 
PREFACE. Vil 
 
 and imaginative people may easily be conjec- 
 tured. Terror combined with religion in dis- 
 posing the mind to adopt delusion for reality ; 
 and visions became frequent and indisputable 
 in exact proportion to the prevalence of timidity 
 and enthusiasm. Sometimes they were not 
 altogether imaginary in their origin. Partial 
 glimpses of some country girl, tripping, perhaps, 
 through the twilight-grove to meet her lover, 
 or stealing into the copse at day-break to bathe 
 in its embowered waters, were quite sufficient 
 to inflame the combustible fancy of a Greek. 
 Others, probably, without such excitement of 
 the external sense would sit amid the solitude 
 of the forest, brooding over the tales which 
 peopled it with nymphs, fauns, and satyrs, 
 until they realised them to their mind's eye, 
 and became Nympholepts the more incurable, 
 a 2 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 because no tangible object had deranged their 
 faculties, and they had consequently no means 
 of proving the fallacy of their impressions. 
 
 Already possessing several translations of 
 Guarini's Pastor Fido, and Tasso's Aminta, 
 (of which last an admirable version has re- 
 cently been published by Mr. Hunt,) and en- 
 riched, as our literature is, by similar dramas 
 of our own, particularly Fletcher's Faithful 
 Shepherdess, and Milton's Comus, it may be 
 thought presumptuous, as well as unnecessary, 
 to have ventured on the same style of compo- 
 sition. It will hardly be required that the 
 Author should disclaim all attempt at compe- 
 tition, or even comparison with those celebrated 
 productions ; but where the chaplet, already en- 
 twined, however beautiful, consists but of few 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 distinct specimens, he trusts he may stand ex- 
 cused in tendering a few wild flowers, perhaps 
 not unmixed with weeds, for the sake of giving 
 variety to the pastoral wreath. He is not aware 
 that Nympholepsy has been made the subject of 
 poetical experiment, or that the religious scepti- 
 cism and excitement prevalent in Greece at the 
 period to which he has assigned his drama, 
 have been impressed into the service of the 
 muses. Plato, influenced by the fate of 
 Socrates, had introduced his new mystical 
 Theogony, without attempting the complete de- 
 molition of the established theory, and, though 
 obviously a believer in the unity of the Deity, 
 was cautious in denying Polytheism. These 
 conflicting opinions, producing doubt upon all 
 points rather than conviction upon any, stimu- 
 lated that insatiable curiosity for prying into the 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 mysteries of nature, of which it has been at- 
 tempted to delineate a faint outline in the cha- 
 racter of Amarynthus, the Nympholept. In the 
 more pastoral parts, the Author has borrowed 
 from Theocritus almost as unblushingly as 
 Virgil did before him, though he fears that 
 he has been more successful in imitating his 
 rusticity than in catching any portion of his 
 Doric and graceful beauties. 
 
 Lucy Milford is founded on a circumstance 
 related to the Author, as having actually oc- 
 curred, some years ago, upon the coast of Nor- 
 folk. Some of our sects, among other anti- 
 social regulations, rigidly forbid all marriages 
 out of the pale of their own persuasion ; a re- 
 striction which frequently occasions the most 
 heart-rending struggles between the kind yearn- 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 ings of nature, and the stern mandates of a 
 mistaken intolerance. Missionaries, actuated 
 perhaps by the best intentions, but certainly 
 armed with more zeal than discretion, over- 
 run the country, and by inculcating on their 
 proselytes the necessity of implicit obedience 
 to this injunction, whatever may have been 
 their previous engagements, oppose themselves 
 to all the charities of human life, and too often 
 tear up domestic comfort by the very roots. — 
 To expose the miseries engendered by this 
 narrow proscription will not be unavailing, if, in 
 one single instance, it shall succeed in restoring 
 a more liberal and kindly spirit. If there be 
 any contention among fellow-countrymen and 
 worshippers of the same God, let it be an 
 emulation for extinguishing all these paltry ex- 
 clusions, and let him be considered the best 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 Christian who is the first to extend to all his 
 neighbours, without distinction of sect or party, 
 the right hand of fellowship and brotherly 
 love. 
 
AMARYNTHUS, 
 
 THE 
 
 NYMPHOLEPT. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Urania, a nymph of the air. 
 
 Dryope, a tvood-nymph. 
 
 Theucarila, a priestess of Pan, sister to A?na- 
 
 rynthus. 
 CEnone, a Delphic girl. 
 
 Amarillis, a shepherdess, in love ivith Phcebidas. 
 Doris, mother of Amarillis. 
 
 Amarynthus, the Nympholept. 
 Chabrias, a priest of Pan. 
 Phcebidas, a herdsman, in love ivith Amarillis. 
 Celadon, a rich Athenian, having possessions at 
 Tempe. 
 
 Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Nymphs, Satyrs, and 
 Favons. 
 
 Scene. The Vale of Tempe and its Neighbourhood. 
 
AMARYNTHUS, 
 
 THE 
 
 NYMPHOLEPT. 
 
 ACT THE FIRST. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The Vale of Tempe. 
 
 Chabrias, surrounded tvith Shepherds and Shep- 
 herdesses, is seen standing beside a rustic Altar. 
 
 Chabrias. U pon our altar let this lambkin fair 
 Burn as a holocaust, until its smoke 
 Curl up into the lofty blue, and bear 
 Our breathings to the God whom we invoke. 
 
 \He comes forward. 
 Thou great and good, all hail ! Whatever tongue 
 May best befit thee from adoring man, 
 b 2 
 
4 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Mendes or Chemmis to Egyptians sung 
 
 By seven-mouth'd Nile, or comprehensive Pan, 
 
 By the primeval shepherds named, that trod 
 
 The new-born hills of Arcady, all hail ! 
 
 They, when their yearning hearts required a God, 
 
 Sate on their mountains musing, till the gale 
 
 Of inspiration bade them recognize 
 
 A mighty spirit breathing thro* the whole 
 
 Infinitude of ocean, earth, and skies, 
 
 The world's Creator, and its living soul : — 
 
 A self-existent, ever-flowing stream 
 
 Of light and life, pervading, blessing all, 
 
 And hence, ejaculating " Pan !" with fall 
 
 Of reverent knees they hail'd thee God supreme. 
 
 To this etherial spirit fancy soon 
 
 Gave form indefinite ; the sun and moon 
 
 Became the eyes and index of its mind, 
 
 The tides its pulses, and its breath the wind. 
 
 A later age gave emblematic birth 
 
 To an ideal shape, half brute, half man, 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPIIOLEPT. 5 
 
 Of the mix'd elements of heaven and earth 
 Daring to fashion a symbolic Pan. 
 His upper portion typified mankind, 
 His lower parts the brutes : — his horns out-bent 
 The spreading rays of sun and moon defined : 
 His spotted skin the starry firmament : 
 His face the ruddy sky : his seven-reed pipe 
 The music of the seven-infolded spheres. 
 Alas ! how soon the heavenly archetype 
 In the terrestrial symbol disappears. 
 Our Sires embodied Deity had shown ; — 
 The human capriform their sons retained 
 They deified, and impiously stain'd 
 With earthly lusts to sanctify their own. 
 Thou desecrated holiness ! forgive 
 The dark distortions that thy name defile ; 
 O spare the guilty worshippers who live 
 In creeds impure, and profanations vile, 
 And hear thy priest, who, stung with shame and grief. 
 Cries out to thee for sanctifying aid, 
 b 3 
 
6 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 That his benighted flock he may persuade 
 Back to the pure and primitive belief. 
 Simple and rude, if selfish hymns they raise 
 Only for blessings that to earth belong, 
 Look kindly down on their imperfect praise, 
 Grant what is right, and pardon what is wrong. 
 
 The Peasants, bearing branches of pine, kneel round 
 the altar, and chant the following hymn : 
 1. 
 Glory to Pan ! Glory to Pan ! 
 Praise him with paeans each maiden and man ; 
 Our cattle he shields, our harvests he yields : 
 Hail to thee ! hail to thee ! God of the fields ! 
 
 2. 
 Thou, who dost reign over valley and plain, 
 O list to the prayer of the shepherd and swain ; 
 Our dairies and farms deliver from harms, 
 And shelter our folds when the night-wolf 
 alarms, 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 7 
 
 3. 
 
 Guide back the young lambs who have stray'd 
 
 from their dams, 
 And make them in shearing-time hardy as rams ; 
 Our goats and our cows instruct where to browse, 
 That their milk may be sweet, and abound in each 
 
 house. 
 
 Pan ! Pan ! Glory to Pan ! &c. 
 
 Chabrias. Come not with hecatombs in sacrifice, 
 To soothe imagin'd wrath by cruel rites. 
 Nor costly gifts, nor grovelling flatteries, 
 As if your God had human appetites ; 
 But what your simple shepherd state admits, 
 Betokening grateful love, n,ot slavish fear, 
 Tender with such frank homage as befits 
 Man to prefer, and gracious heaven to hear. 
 
 1st Shepherd. New milk and honey, three times 
 purified, 
 We in our wooden bowls have brought. 
 b 4 
 
8 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 2d Shepherd. And we 
 
 These leaves of pine into a wreath have tied 
 For our God's statue. 
 
 Shepherdess. Down in yonder lea, 
 
 With dew-wash'd fingers, we these flowers have 
 
 pluck'd, 
 With which to strew the temple of our God. 
 
 Chabrias. So may ye always act as I instruct. 
 Give me by alb and amice, wreath and rod, 
 That with due vesture I may solemnize 
 Our temple mysteries. On the verdant sod, 
 (These rites concluded,) shall ye seek the prize 
 In games gymnastic, wrestling, and the race, 
 And on Pan's altar shall the victors place 
 Their olive garlands, which of right belong 
 To him who gave them vigour. Let us grace 
 Our holiday with harmless feast and song, 
 Blessing the Deity who blesses earth, 
 With worship that he loves us to address, 
 Homage of grateful glee and social mirth, 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 9 
 
 And unpolluted human happiness. 
 On to the grove of pines, whose lofty boughs 
 Garland with green our temple's marble brows. 
 . [Exeunt in procession, singing " Pan ! Pan ! 
 Glory to Pan /" fyc. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A Rocky Ravine near the Vale of Tempe. 
 
 Enter Amarillis. 
 
 Ho ! Phoebidas ! what ho ! Alas ! alas ! 
 The hollow rocks return me back his name 
 As if to mock my grief. O Phoebidas 
 Where hast thou wander'd from thine Amarillis 
 What ho ! 
 
 Celadon (entering). Who calls so loudly ? Peace, 
 for shame ! 
 Dost thou not know that in this rocky haunt 
 There is a fount, where, on a bed of lilies, 
 A Naiad sleeps ? 
 
10 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Amarillis. O hail ! fair nymph ! avaunt 
 
 Be all irreverent noises from thine ear ; 
 Thus, on my knees, your pardon I implore 
 For my rude clamour. 
 
 Celadon. Amarillis, dear, 
 Tho' scornful, dear, and beautiful as cold, 
 What seekst thou here? Why does thy flock 
 
 explore 
 These haggard cliffs, and piny dells, where blow 
 No wild flowers, and no grass can flourish ? 
 
 Amarillis. Bold 
 
 And unadvised these wanderings may seem, 
 But trust me, Celadon, I scarcely know 
 Whither I roam, for I have lost (O Pan, 
 Restore him safe and soon !) my Phcebidas. 
 Say, hast thou seen him in these wilds ? 
 
 Celadon. You dream 
 
 In asking me. The shepherdesses can 
 Resolve you better. Ask the black-eyed lass, 
 Alphesibsea, she who tends the goats 
 
SCENE IT.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 11 
 
 Of Damon, — question budding Melanippe, 
 
 The romp, whose ruddy arms so oft enfold 
 
 His neck like garlands ; — hie to brown Alcippe, 
 
 The Athenian chorister, whose wanton notes 
 
 Lull'd him last night beside the guggling river ; — 
 
 Seek the vine-pruner, plump Tilphosa 
 
 Amarillis. Hold • 
 
 Thy poisonous tongue, unmannerly deceiver ! 
 By the dread frown of tower'd Cybele, 
 Thou hast belied my Phcebidas ; for he 
 Is true as is the shadow to the sun, 
 Bees to their queen, or swallows to the spring. 
 O Celadon, unkind ! was this well done, 
 Afflicted as I am to sting mine ear 
 With thy base fictions ? Slanderer, I fling 
 Thy falsehoods in thy face. 
 
 Celadon. Close not that mouth, 
 
 Altho' it scold me, nor let disappear 
 Those teeth, whose whiteness makes the lip more red, 
 Like snow-drops set in a carnation-bed. 
 
12 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Am I to blame if thy false-hearted youth 
 
 Intoxication drinks from Dirce's lip, 
 
 As from the nectaries of hollyhocks 
 
 The humble bee, even till he faints, will sip ? 
 
 Have I the charge of Ianira's locks, 
 
 Whose web has caught that butterfly — his heart ? 
 
 Amarillis. Away, away ! I will not hear thy sorry 
 Fables. Dirce and Ianira ? Psha ! 
 He hates their Ethiop lips. 
 
 Celadon. How blind thou art 
 
 To his known falsehood ; but no longer worry 
 Thy soul about him. Is not his desertion 
 Base ? Is not absence infidelity ? 
 And doth it well become a modest maid 
 To follow one who holds her in aversion ? 
 
 Amarillis. Traducer, he does not. O I could cry 
 To hear him thus abused ! 
 
 Celadon. If not betray 'd, 
 
 Thou art forgotten — then let another lover 
 Supply his loss, who will not ape his flight. 
 
SCENE II. j THE NYMPHOLEPT. 13 
 
 Amarillis. Another ! Whom ? 
 
 Celadon. What ! canst thou not discover? 
 
 Have I so long, fair Amarillis, vow'd 
 That thou wert dear to me, so wish'd to plight 
 A mutual faith, so grieved when disallow'd; 
 And has all vanish'd with no deeper trace 
 Than cloudy shadows on a summer sea ? 
 Bethink thee, Amarillis, I am rich, 
 And can exalt thee from the plain, to grace 
 Cities and courts. Ennobled shalt thou be 
 Above thy kindred ; music shall bewitch 
 Thy waking senses, and thy sleep enlist 
 Elysium. Round thy Tyrian robes a sash 
 Of gold shall blaze, — each finger be on fire 
 With ruby rings and clasps of amethyst, 
 And thine ears' pendant diamonds shall out-flash 
 All but thine eyes. I have a stately ship 
 Here at Iolchos, and two more, whose prows, 
 Sparkling with gold, throw lustre on the waves 
 Of the Piraeus. One I will equip 
 
14 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 As a floating palace, that we may carouse 
 
 On nectar in its marble baths, while slaves 
 
 Sing summer madrigals. Another shall 
 
 Transport us to the Olympian games, — the third 
 
 To Delos when Apollo's festival 
 
 Is solemnised, aryl thou shalt be preferr'd 
 
 At both unto the loftiest station, dress'd 
 
 Royally. 
 
 Amarillis. This is the secret then of all 
 Thy forgeries about Alphesibaea, 
 Tilphosa, Melanippe, and the rest ; 
 Coin'd but to make me jealous, — vain idea : 
 I've heard thine offers, listen now to me. 
 I am a shepherdess, and thou art great 
 In wealth, if not in virtue : — if to thee 
 The pomps thou boastest of convey delight, 
 Go, taste them with thy wife. My humble state, 
 Even if I lov'd so high, unfits me quite 
 For grandeur : — shared with one whom I despise, 
 As I do thee, it would be wretchedness 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT, 15 
 
 Supreme. Yet we, whom rustic life entices, 
 
 Have luxuries, pomps, and pleasures that we prize, 
 
 Above thy poor magnificence. Confess 
 
 That health and virtue, which are happiness, 
 
 Are more luxurious than thy sickly vices. 
 
 What pomps can courts and capitals supply 
 
 So gorgeous as the rising of the sun 
 
 Over this vale of Tempe ? so sublime 
 
 As the sea's deep-mouth'd voice in harmony 
 
 With woods and winds — an awful unison ! 
 
 What matins like the larks, who heavenward climb, 
 
 And pour down lighted music from above ? 
 
 W r hat midnight serenade so rapturous 
 
 As the lone nightingale's, whose soul of love 
 
 Out-gushes with her song ? — Jewels and rings ! 
 
 Is not each dewy blade, and leaf, and flower, 
 
 Hung with a pearl, which, when the sun up-springs, 
 
 Is dyed to amethyst and ruby ? Shower 
 
 Thy golden sashes elsewhere, — here they're lost ; 
 
 For we. when in the sunnv corn we stray, 
 
16 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Are zoned by waving sheets of gold, emboss'd 
 With Flora's rich embroidery. 
 
 Celadon. By Apollo ! 
 
 Thine anger makes thee eloquent : — hast ended ? 
 
 Amarillis. No ; I have told our pomps, now 
 hear me prove 
 Our pleasures. O how sweet it is to follow 
 My flock o'er hill, and down, and dale, attended 
 By him I love ; well knowing him to love 
 Me, and me only. Sweet to see him run 
 To cull me strawberries from the hedge's side, 
 Or ripe queen-apples, on whose cheeks the sun 
 Hath left the ruby of his lips, or mellow 
 Figs such as Sicily hath ne'er outvied : 
 While I, with grateful heart, gather him yellow 
 Daffodils, pinks, anemones, musk-roses, 
 Or that red flower whose lips ejaculate 
 Woe, — and form them into wreaths and posies, 
 On rushy baskets heap'd in fragrant piles. 
 Soothing it is and sweet to contemplate 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 17 
 
 A smiling earth, sea, sky, and mark their smiles 
 Upon the faces that we love reflected : — 
 With kindred hearts thro' flowery meads to stray 
 To the God's fane by whom we are protected, 
 To thank him for our happiness, and pray 
 That fortune's aid may soon unite each heart 
 At Hymen s altar. Such is the happy lot 
 I share with Phcebidas ; rich as thou art 
 And high, canst thou improve my fate ? If not, 
 Grant the sole boon thy grandeur can confer, 
 And help me gather up my scatter 'd sheep, 
 For my poor wearied Rover scarce can stir, 
 Lamed in these steepy crags, and bottoms deep. 
 
 Celadon. By froth-born Venus and her quiver'd 
 boy, 
 Thou shalt not move a foot till I have tasted 
 Those fluent lips. 
 
 Amarillis. Attempt it, and my cries 
 
 Shall rouse the goatherds. 
 
 c 
 
18 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Celadon. Darest thou then annoy 
 
 A vengeful Naiad sleeping ? 
 
 Amarillis. Thou hast wasted 
 
 Again thy simple cunning ; for I see 
 This is another of thy forgeries 
 To silence me. 
 
 Celadon. Nay then I have a plea 
 
 To stop thy mouth with kisses. 
 
 Amarillis. Back, base man ! 
 
 Or I will set my dog at thee. By Pan ! 
 If thou but mov'st a single step, my crook 
 Shall fell thee to the earth. Hie, Rover, leap, 
 And chace my thirsty flock from yonder swamp, 
 That I may guide them thro' the glen to the 
 
 brook 
 Down in the vale. Thou wealthy wooer, keep 
 Thy tales, seductions, gold, and guilty pomp 
 For city damsels. [Exit. 
 
 Celadon. Foil'd by a rustic minx ! 
 
 Rejected, lectured, and a clumsy clown 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 19 
 
 Preferr'd ! — Tis well ; but if the vixen thinks 
 To 'scape my vengeance, she has little known 
 Celadon's nature. In yon secret grove 
 I'll lie. and plot revenge for slighted love. [Exit, 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 The Vale of Tempe. 
 
 Amarynthus alone. 
 
 Plutus, thou bloated fiend, God of the foul 
 And sordid slaves of gold, 
 Chain me no more — unfold 
 The talons that have grasp'd my soul 
 And wither'd up its beauty. — Hence, avaunt ! 
 Thou and thy crew with quenchless hunger gaunt. 
 Thus with repentant shudders of disgust 
 Do I shake off all sympathy 
 With thee and thy idolatry, 
 And as the camel, parch'd with dust, 
 Athwart the desert from afar will scent 
 c 2 
 
20 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 The fountain's moisture, and above controul 
 Leap to the blessed waters ; so my soul, 
 Long in the city's peopled desert pent, 
 O holy Nature, to thy freshness rushes, 
 To bathe in leafy greenness, and inhale 
 The rapture that to all my senses gushes. 
 My spirit seems with new-born flutterings 
 Against the body's bars to beat its wings. 
 At Athens, when th' Acropolis I trod, 
 Thus have I stood, awed by the majesty 
 Of some celestial marble, till I felt 
 In every nerve the thrill of symmetry, 
 Misdeeming it a reverence of the God. — 
 'Twas but the chord that vibrated to thee, 
 To whom I should have knelt, 
 O lovely Nature ! of whose perfect graces 
 Art can but feebly shadow forth the traces. 
 What art or poet's fancy, 
 In all it's necromancy, 
 Could conjure up a sylvan scene like this ? 
 Flowery slopes with temples crown'd ; 
 
SCENE J II.} THE NYMPHOLEPT. 21 
 
 Fountains, grots, and waving woods, 
 
 Sunny spots and solitudes, 
 
 Where the deepening meadow mingles 
 
 With the green darkness of the dingles. 
 
 Breezes that with beaks resound, 
 
 Incense throwing 
 
 From blossoms blowing, 
 
 While through the vale the Peneus flowing, 
 
 From rocks and crags at intervals 
 
 Calls the tumbling waterfalls, 
 
 And, giant-like, in distant view, 
 
 Ossa and Olympus throw 
 
 Their craggy foreheads, white with snow, 
 
 Up into the cloudless blue. 
 
 How sweet are the remember'd smells 
 Of infancy ! — these weeds and flowers wild 
 Draw the same perfume from the constant earth 
 With which I was delighted when a child. 
 O had I stuck to Nature, and these dells, 
 My happy place of birth, 
 
 c 3 
 
22 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 I might have still retain'd, like this calm blossom, 
 The sweetness ever springing from her bosom. 
 
 CEnone runs in tvith a Hunting- Spear in her Hand, 
 Jbllotved by Theucarila. — CEnone sings. 
 
 1. 
 
 Grey was the morning, and cool the breeze, 
 Awake, awake ! be up with Apollo ! 
 
 When the Belides dash'd through the dew-drop- 
 ping trees, 
 With quiver and lance, and hoop and hallo ! 
 
 Their dogs gave tongue till all Argos rung, 
 As with hair on the wind the sisters follow. 
 2. 
 
 Fleet Amymone is first, when lo ! 
 Up springs a stag on his milk-white haunches : 
 
 Away he stretches ; — she grasps her bow, 
 And twang goes her arrow amid the branches ; 
 
 It grazes an oak, and with glancing stroke, 
 Deep in a satyr's shoulder launches. 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 23 
 
 3. 
 
 Out he rushes, with anguish stung, 
 Aghast she flies in a shuddering shiver, 
 
 And as nearer he gets, away are flung 
 Her arrows and spear, her bow and quiver, — 
 
 But see ! as they close, from his arms she flows, 
 By Neptune changed to a running river. 
 
 Amarynthus. O vision beautiful, and vocalist 
 Melodious, who and what art thou ? 
 
 Theucarila. Hist ! 
 
 Question her not — 'tis the wild Delphic girl, 
 CEnone. 
 
 (Enone. Me ? I am a prophetess, 
 And come to seek thee that I might unfurl 
 Thy book of fate. 
 
 . Amarynthus* Couldst thou the future show, 
 
 'Twould chace a maddening doubt that doth possess 
 My soul. 
 
 Theucarila. Nay, brother, let her go ; 
 She's wild and wandering, 
 
24 AJYIARYJNTHUS, [ACT I- 
 
 CEnone. Thou may'st believe 
 
 I am no vulgar witch, with shears and sieve, 
 Poppy and orpine leaf, or sinister 
 Forebodings from the course of crows or hares- 
 Nor do I owe my mystery to her 
 Who reigns in Hell, three-faced Hecate t 
 Who in her cauldron black prepares 
 The charms and magic ministry 
 By midnight Perimeda learnt. 
 When salt is strew'd, and laurel burnt. 
 And melted wax and bones are mix'd, 
 Where the whizzing wheel of brass is fix'd. 
 
 Amarynthus. Whence, then, mellifluous maiden, 
 comes thy lore ? 
 
 CEnone. From listening to the elemental noises, 
 And Nature's various voices, 
 Until I learnt their language to explore. 
 For frugal Nature wastes no breath ; her tongue 
 In every sound of every element, 
 Conveys her orders that this world, uphung 
 In air, may float majestically on 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMFHOLEPT. 25 
 
 To calm eternity. Th' infolded spheres 
 Are music guided through the firmament, 
 Though our degenerate ears 
 No longer catch their glorious echoes. Gone — - 
 Gone are the days of prophecy, 
 When bards could listen to the sky, 
 And from the planetary harmonies 
 Learn the dread secrets of the future. These 
 Are dumb ; — but we have sounds as mystical, 
 Ay, and I know them all — all — all ! 
 What ! think'st thou that the whistling wind 
 Pipes in the storm for nothing ? Idle notion I 
 'Tis to call up the howling waves, confin'd 
 In the sea's depths. No wave of ocean 
 That, in the solitudes of space, 
 Upturns its foamy face 
 . Unto the moon, and, with a gushing sigh, 
 Sinks down again to die ; 
 But is commission'd, and that parting breath, 
 Perhaps, a fiat bears of life and death. 
 
26 . AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Why do the runnels urge their races 
 
 Through the earth's crevices and secret places? 
 
 But that their tongues with nimble guggles 
 
 May scatter orders as they flow, 
 
 And summon from the caves below, 
 
 Agents for the earthquake's struggles. 
 
 When on the ground I lay mine ear, 
 I hear their secret plots 
 
 Come murm'ring up from the central grots ; — 
 Hark ! 'tis the nightingale — how loud and clear ! 
 Tune up, ye feather'd choristers, your throats, 
 For unto me your melody 
 Conveys a hidden sense in all its notes ; 
 Such as, in mystic days of yore, 
 To sage Melampus' ear they bore. 
 Ay ; but the master mystery 
 Remains untold. Come hither — hark ! prepare ; 
 For I must whisper this. — Is no one by ? 
 
 Amarynthus. We are alone. 
 
 CEnone. 'Tis well ; but have a care ! 
 
 Thou'lt not divulge ? 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 27 
 
 Amarynthus. By the Twin Gods, not I ! 
 
 Theucarila. Thy secret is with me in holy 
 keeping. 
 
 CEnone. At nightfall, in those wild, sequester'd 
 lawns, 
 Which, even the nymphs and fawns 
 Have fled — from out the herbage sleeping, * 
 And flowers up-closing, 
 Sometimes a hushing murmur rises, 
 As if the earth were whisp'ring to the ah\ 
 It is the voice of Nature, as reposing, 
 She communes with herself in deep surmises. — 
 Mysterious mutterings ! — but not to me : 
 I can explain each accent as it rolls ; 
 And thus have I a master key, 
 Into her soul of souls. 
 
 Amarynthus. Thou call'st to mind that I have 
 often stray'd, 
 At dumbest midnight, to the green-wood glade, 
 And in the silence, mark'd with awe profound, 
 The boughs, like curtains, hanging stilly round, 
 
28 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 With drowsy vapours from the earth up -wreathing, 
 As if the grass lay fast asleep, and breathing. 
 But hast thou heard a whisper to affect 
 Me? 
 
 (Enone. Not reveal'd by oracle direct ; 
 But as I walk'd one night amid the oats, 
 That rattled as the wind swept by, 
 I question'd them of thee ; and from their notes 
 Gather'd this augury : — 
 
 " From fancied visions he shall be 
 " Reliev'd by their reality." 
 Theucarila. Thy prophecy's obscure. 
 Amarynthus. Nymph, thou hast utter'd 
 
 More riddles than the Sphinx ! — Canst thou not 
 
 spell 
 My fate more clearly ? 
 
 (Enone, It was darkly mutter'd 
 
 To me, and I have told thee all. Farewell ! 
 Hark ! what a roar 
 
 Over hill and dale resounds ; 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 29 
 
 It is Orion with his hounds, 
 Baying the boar. 
 Yo ho ! yo ho ! where is the foe ? 
 Stand by, he shall die at a single blow. [Exit. 
 Amarynthas. Like a young stag she bounds 
 into the dell : 
 Who is this crazy prophetess ? Can'st tell 
 Her story ? 
 
 Theucarila. They say she was a chorister 
 At Delphi, in Apollo's temple. Love, 
 There a forbidden inmate, was to her 
 An inauspicious visitant : her lover, 
 Himself a votary of the God, was keeper 
 Of the holy chalices. The Muse's grove, 
 More than half up Parnassus, rustles over 
 A grotto, from whose marble floor up-flung, 
 The fountain of Castalia gushes ; deeper 
 Within its rocky arch, a golden lyre, 
 The gift of the Arcadians, is hung. 
 Thither the lovers would at dark retire, 
 
30 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 And sat one night within the silent cell 
 Fondling, while the full moon arose and flung 
 Her rays into the cave, until they fell 
 Upon the lyre : when lo ! two lovely arms 
 Advancing on the moonlight, swept the strings, 
 And, while a wondrous melody alarms 
 Their ears, a voice of heavenly sweetness sings, 
 Announcing deep yet dulcet threatenings, 
 Unless, thenceforth, they were for ever parted. 
 Some will assert that Dian's self out-darted 
 Her alabaster arms to strike the chord ; 
 While others think it was the temple's lord, 
 Apollo, shock'd to see his cave profan'd, 
 That sent this vision to forewarn them. Shrieking, 
 CEnone fled her lover ; nor remain'd 
 Longer at Delphi, but bewilder'd, craz'd, 
 Roams o'er the Grecian territory, seeking 
 All rites, solemnities, and festivals, 
 Where she may exercise her choral art ; 
 And chaunting to the villagers, amaz'd, 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 31 
 
 Snatches of songs, heroic madrigals, 
 
 And tales of the olden time. Her chosen sphere, 
 
 As thou hast witnessed, is to act the part 
 
 Of prophetess. 
 
 Amarynthns. What fancy brought her here ? 
 
 Theucarila. Pan's festival, at which she means 
 to sing. 
 But the time presses — I must haste to bring 
 Water from the holy well for our lustrations. [Exit* 
 Amarynthus. And I to indulge my lonely me- 
 ditations. 
 What sound was that? Methought the river 
 
 groan' d ! 
 Thou murmuring Peneus ! dost thou mourn thy 
 
 daughter, 
 Daphne, who demurely straying 
 Amid these stately lawns and green alcoves, 
 Met the flush'd Apollo playing 
 Upon his golden lyre, and thro' the groves 
 Fled wildly to thy parent water ? 
 
32 AMARYNTIIUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Upon her neck, parting her streaming hair 
 
 She felt the God's ambrosial breath, 
 
 When Dian heard her prayer, 
 
 In an embalming laurel caught her, 
 
 And bark'd her round with chastity and death. 
 
 A chaplet of these hallow'd leaves shall bind 
 
 My brows — but hold ! perchance this very tree, 
 
 Throwing its filial arms athwart the stream, 
 
 Was Daphne once, and felt its plastic rind 
 
 Heave with her panting breast. And see ! 
 
 The waters with paternal fondness seem 
 
 To kiss its root, and struggle to embrace 
 
 Its pendent boughs. O virgin ! sacrifice, 
 
 May all the precincts of thy leafy shrine 
 
 Be sanctified, and round about the place 
 
 White amaranths and roses white entwine 
 
 With stainless lilies. Those mysterious sighs 
 
 Are hush'd, but still I'll roam amid the trees, 
 
 Abandon'd to my wildering reveries. [Exit. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 33 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 A Grove. 
 
 Celadon alone. 
 
 What Nymph is this whose stately steps advance 
 
 Along these mossy paths ? Theucarila ! 
 
 O happy hour ! I have long loved this proud 
 
 Pretender to cold chastity : perchance 
 
 In this sequester'd solitude she may 
 
 Atone for Amarillis' scorn. 
 
 {To Theucarila^ entering?) A crowd 
 Of pleasing fancies whisper' d me, that beauty 
 Was hovering hereabout. What happy want 
 Leads thee to these embower'd depths ? 
 
 Theucarila. My duty, 
 
 To gather water from the holy well 
 For our solemnities. 
 
 Celadon. Wilt thou not grant, 
 
 Lovely Theucarila, thine ear awhile, 
 
 D 
 
34 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 To one whose thoughts have never ceased to dwell 
 Upon thy beauties ? 
 
 Theucarila. Me wouldst thou beguile 
 
 With flatteries ? Be quick if thou hast aught 
 To say. 
 
 Celadon, I am no rustic unimbued, 
 Poor, and illiterate, such as this glen 
 Produces. I am an Athenian ; taught 
 In groves of Academus, and have stood 
 Under those porticoes where mighty men, 
 Plato and Socrates, instilFd sublime 
 Philosophy. I have sat in theatres 
 Adorn'd by Phidias, plann'd by Pericles ; 
 And heard, with beating heart, the harrowing rhyme 
 Of Eschylus and dread Euripides. 
 At the Symposium which Xenophon 
 Gave on the triumph of Autolycus, 
 I was a guest, and sat by Socrates. 
 
 Theucarila. What is it that this lofty boast infers, 
 Since I came not your merits to discuss? 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 35 
 
 Celadon. That I am worthy to be lov'd, nor 
 
 lack 
 Talent to show that sullen chastity 
 Is impious, and ingratitude most black 
 To the kind lessons of the earth and sky. 
 Love governs earth and air; the flocks and 
 
 herds 
 Join to the twitter of the billing birds 
 Their hymeneal cries. Love's suit 
 Even the dumb inanimates pursue. 
 The ivy clasps the oak, the vine the elm, 
 Pouting her purple lips to kiss his root. 
 By touch of blossom'd mouths the flowers renew 
 Their races odorous. This woody realm 
 Is Cupid's bower ; see how the trees enwreathe 
 Their arms in amorous embraces twined ! 
 The gugglings of the rill that runs beneath, 
 Are but the kisses which it leaves behind ; 
 While softly sighing thro' these fond retreats, 
 The wanton wind woos every thing it meets. 
 d 2 
 
36 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Theucarila. Let the beasts minister to appetite : 
 What can their wildness move 
 In beings loftier ? Construed aright, 
 Nature cries out against licentious love, 
 To the perversions of thy wanton eye 
 Opposing lessons of cold chastity. 
 To toy with Zephyrus wild roses peep 
 Forth from their hedges ; but when he assails 
 Their lips too rudely, back they creep, 
 Blushing, and drop their leafy veils. 
 The timid rill that steals 
 To meet the smiles of Titan, when she feels 
 His burning mouth upon her cheek, 
 Back to her fountain shrinks, panting for breath. 
 The lily bares her bosom to the dew, 
 Pure as itself ; but should a spoiler seek 
 To pluck it from the peace in which it grew, 
 Bursts into tears and quickly pines to death. 
 Amid the sighing reeds does Syrinx still 
 Shiver in cold repugnancy to Pan : 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 3,7 
 
 Here in this very vale did Daphne fill 
 Apollo's arms with laurels as he ran ; 
 And yonder from the skies did Dian smile 
 Chastely upon their rooted chastity. 
 
 Celadon. Yet she herself used many a wanton 
 wile 
 With Pan and pale Eudymion. 
 
 Theucarila. Tho' the sky 
 
 And earth should league their blazonry of shame, 
 Within myself a vestal spirit dwells 
 On my heart's altar to preserve the flame 
 Of quenchless chastity. My bosom swells 
 Proud of its champion, planted there by Pan, 
 Not as a guard alone from lawless man, 
 But every foe of earth or Erebus. 
 Pure thoughts and holy, round about her clinging, 
 To the chaste virgin shall be tutelary. 
 By caverns should she pass, where glaring eyes 
 Tell quicker than their cries, 
 
 That ravenous beasts upon her path are springing, 
 d 3 
 
38 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Or tread the forest's wine-soak'd turf, where hairy- 
 Satyrs, abandon'd bacchanals, and fauns, 
 Hold the night orgies of Cotytto lewd, 
 Safe should she pass as tho' she paced the 
 
 lawns 
 Of Dian's Ephesus in solitude. 
 Harpies may hover round, and Syrens hymn 
 Seductive warblings from enchanted coasts, 
 The grisly troops of Tartarus the grim, 
 Gorgons, chimaeras, goblins, imps, and ghosts, 
 Her footsteps may beleaguer ; philter and spell, 
 And all the abomination 
 Of magic charms and incantation, 
 Tho' breath'd by Circe or Medea fell, 
 Shall harm her not. Strait forward shall she keep 
 Her unpolluted way, for chastity, 
 Merely by that omnipotence that lies 
 In her own innocent eyes, 
 The rampant rout shall quell, 
 Marching before, her awful centinel. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 39 
 
 Celadon. Invisible champion, draw thy doughty 
 sword, 
 For thus I seize thy charge. 
 
 Theucarila. Rash profligate, 
 
 What seek'st thou by this rude encountering ? 
 
 Celadon. Where is the blazing brand to vindi- 
 cate 
 Thy lips from shame ? 
 
 Theucarila. A graver need shall bring 
 
 Its aid invoked ; mine eye alone can now, 
 By its fierce lightning, paralise thine arm. 
 
 Celadon. Above that eye I see an arched 
 brow, 
 The bow of Cupid ; but the darts that swarm 
 Within its arc attract me, not repel. 
 Thy looks re-kindle what thy words would quell : 
 Miscalculating scorner, is it thy plan 
 To stab my love to death with Cupid's dart ? 
 Trifle no more, for guarded as thou art, 
 Force shall allay thy pride. 
 d 4 
 
40 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Theucarila. Help ! help ! O Pan ! 
 
 [A Troop of Nymphs, Satyrs, and Fauns, rush 
 
 in, and dance around her, singing in chorus. 
 
 Quick o'er the sod, 
 
 At the name of our God, 
 
 Hither we bound, 
 
 And his priestess surround : 
 
 Hail ! hail ! hail ! 
 
 We'll guard our queen, 
 Thro' these alleys green, 
 Till the waters we bring 
 From the sacred spring : 
 Hail ! hail ! hail ! 
 
 \They go out dancing round Theucarila. 
 Celadon, who had withdrawn, comes 
 forward. 
 
 Celadon. Again disdain'd, and cheated of my 
 prize J 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 41 
 
 By Rhadamanthus and the dog of hell, 
 
 I will not slake my thirst till I devise 
 
 Revenge most ruinous. O for some fell 
 
 Design that may at once the peace betray 
 
 Of Amarillis and Theucarila ! [Exit. 
 
 scene v. 
 Part of the Champaign of Thessaly. 
 
 Amarillis and Phgebidas, meeting. 
 
 Amarillis. O long lost Phoebidas! first let me 
 praise 
 Pan, that I see you safe, then tell me where, 
 Where have you been these ten long lingeringdays ? 
 How have I grieved for you, — o'er down and dale 
 How have I roam'd about, making the air 
 Echo your name, even from the windy height 
 That overlooks the blue Thermaic bay, 
 Down to the flowery bottoms, where regale 
 The flocks of Thestalus. 
 
42 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Phcebidas. Do you delight 
 
 To banter still, or may I trust you ? 
 
 Amarillis. Nay, 
 
 I only trifled with you, Phcebidas, 
 When I was happy by your side. Ten days 
 Of absence have quite alter'd me. Alas ! 
 I scarce have slept or smiled since last we parted 
 Down by the fount of Haemon, when, with praise 
 Of my rude charms, you kiss'd me, and agreed 
 Next morn to meet me by the orchard-gate 
 Of old Damaetas. Almost broken hearted, 
 Day after day, did I your coming wait, 
 And sang the song you lov'd ; and on my reed 
 Whistled to rouse your Lightfoot's well known bark, 
 Which oft hath led me to your pasturage. 
 But neither might I hear his voice, nor mark 
 His white side bounding o'er the waving grass, 
 Like a sail toss'd on Neptune's tumbling green. 
 How listless then I stray'd ! Naught could engage 
 My vagrant heedlessness. My sheep, alas 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 43 
 
 Were left to wander on the tawny slopes 
 
 Of sun-burnt hills, or scramble crags unseen, 
 
 Whence one poor lamb fell headlong down and died. 
 
 Sometimes I sat apart, and fondly sigh'd 
 
 Over the crook you made me, till my tears 
 
 Fell fast upon your name, for all my hopes 
 
 Of life seem'd lost, and yet I know not why. 
 
 My mother, too, kept harping in mine ears, 
 
 11 How dull thou art — what makes thy cheeks so- 
 
 pale? 
 Dost thou use Thapsus ?" — Tears were my sole 
 
 reply ; 
 And yet what cause had I to weep ? 
 
 Phcebidas. Your tale 7 
 
 Dear Amarillis, lets the secret out. 
 It says, nay do not blush, it says you love me J 
 And to deny it longer were to flout 
 Profanely Cupid's power. 
 
 Amarillis, O don't reprove me. 
 
 Lend me your hand — feel how my heart is beating, 
 
44 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Nor has it ceas'd to throb this gladsome peal 
 From the first moment of our happy meeting. 
 
 Phcehidas. Another proof of what you would 
 conceal. 
 
 Amarillis. Venus forbid that I should slight 
 her power ! 
 If this be love, indeed, then from this hour 
 With all the fondness that may best adorn 
 A modest maid, to thee I pledge my love. 
 
 Phcebidas. And I, dear Amarillis, by this kiss 
 Confirm the vows I have already sworn ; 
 And ratify by this embrace, and this, 
 Our plighted constancy. 
 
 Amarillis. Nay, nay, remove 
 
 Your lips too eager, and the tale repeat 
 Of your strange absence. Help me drive my sheep 
 Under yon Lentisck hedge, while you and I 
 Beneath these shady pines can take our seat. 
 
 Phcebidas. Here is no turf, and all is rough 
 and deep 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 45 
 
 With scatter'd cones that will not let us lie ; 
 But yonder is a green, and gentle knoll, 
 Purfled with daisies, yellowcups, and thyme, 
 And canopied by an o'erhanging copse. 
 There, while your flock the flowery herbage crops, 
 And underneath the boughs my cattle stroll, 
 Browsing the tender leaves, we will recline, 
 On the gay landscape gazing till it fades 
 In the blue distance. 
 
 Amarillis. Gather up your kine ; 
 
 For see, my sheep have sought the hazel shades. 
 
 Phcebidas. Upon this primrose bank I'll sit. 
 
 Amarillis. And here 
 
 Beside you will I listen to your tale. 
 
 Phcebidas. When last we parted, Amarillis dea^ 
 You know I was a goat-herd in the vale 
 Of Haemont, ending churlish Cymon's flocks* 
 There is a sloping field above the rocks 
 Of Homole, where in luxuriance grow 
 Wild honeysuckles and cyperus low, 
 
46 AMARYNTHUS,. [ACT I. 
 
 Which goats delight to browse ; there mine I drove, 
 
 And sat and piped beneath an almond tree, 
 
 Or carolFd old bucolic songs of love, 
 
 Till gazing on a distant sail at sea, 
 
 I thought upon the shepherds of the deep, 
 
 Who plough the wave, and sometimes only reap 
 
 The wind. Far happier is the goat-herd's lot, 
 
 Said I, and I far happiest of the clan, 
 
 Could but my Amarillis share my cot; 
 
 And then I gather'd rushes, and began 
 
 To weave a garland for you, intertwined 
 
 With violets, hepaticas, primroses, 
 
 And coy anemone, that ne'er uncloses 
 
 Her lips until they're blown on by the wind. 
 
 Meanwhile my dog 
 
 Amarillis. Stop, Phcebidas, for lo ! 
 
 Yon cow has wandered, and on Milo's lands 
 His olives crops. 
 
 Phcebidas. Off, Whiteface ! down below, 
 To the shady glen where yon black heifer stands. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 47 
 
 Whisking the flies off in the rushy brook. 
 
 Ill luck betide the beast, she will not hear ! 
 
 O for a stone to throw ! Lend me your crook, — 
 
 If I get near her she shall feel my blow. 
 
 Amarillis. O hurt her not, poor beast, nor go 
 too near, 
 Lest she should gore thee : — recollect the woes 
 That Venus proved for her Adonis dear, 
 And think of me. See, see, the wanderer goes 
 Back to the herd, so, Phcebidas, sit here 
 Close by my side, and let me hear the rest, 
 
 Phcebidas. Where was I, Amarillis ? 
 
 Amarillis. You were saying 
 
 About your dog. — 
 
 Phcebidas. Ay ; he with heat oppress'd 
 
 Lay fast asleep, by starts and growls betraying 
 That he was dreaming like his master. I 
 Dreaming of thee, in reverie profound, 
 My flowery garland wove, smiling to hear 
 The cuckoo's note which on the breeze swept by, 
 
48 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 And then was lost again, when oh, sad sound ! 
 
 The cough of Cymon grated on mine ear ; 
 
 And soon I saw him hobbling up the rock, 
 
 Rage in his face, and curses on his lip. 
 
 Alack ! no wonder ; for my truant flock 
 
 Had climb'd the fence where his young vines were 
 
 growing, 
 And nibbled every green and tender tip ; 
 The while, unseen, a fox had seiz'd my scrip, 
 And left me dinnerless. His staff first throwing, 
 He smote poor Lightfoot, who, with howling snarl, 
 Limp'd home, and cannot walk even now. On me 
 Next burst his wrath. — " A murrain seize thee, 
 
 Carl," 
 He fiercely growl'd, — " May Bacchus' tygers tear 
 
 thee, 
 " For these torn vines ! may midnight satyrs scare 
 
 " thee ! 
 " May ravens ever croak their augury 
 " In thy left ear ! and may Pandora spare thee 
 
JSCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 49 
 
 " Her box to be thy scrip ! — Home, lazy loon ! 
 " Home to the farm, while I collect your goats ! 
 " Oaf ! sluggard! idiot! dolt!" — Such was the 
 
 tune 
 The wind blew after me in growling notes, 
 As home I trudg'd : yet all my thoughts were still 
 So fix'd on thee, that, through the field of oats, 
 Beyond the farm, and half way up the hill, 
 I stray'd, without discovering where I was. 
 
 Amarillis. Most sorry am I, gentle Phcebidas, 
 That thought of me should ever work thee woe : 
 Indeed, I would not harm thee : Pan forbid ! 
 No, not for all the brindled cows that low . 
 In Thessaly. Still, truant, thou hast hid 
 The secret of thy absence. 
 
 Phcebidas. By the stream 
 
 Of Gonnus Cymon's oil-mill stands. 
 There was I set to work, and coarsely fed, 
 And every night lock'd closely up, to dream 
 Of thee and love ; again with weary hands 
 
50 AMAItYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 Next morn to ply the wheel, till ten days fled, 
 When Cymon thus address'd me with a frown : — 
 " Well, sluggard, wilt thou leave my goats again 
 " To browse my vines ? but I'll not trust thee, 
 
 " clown, 
 " Except with cows and heifers ! hie with these 
 " Down to the meadows ; not the sunny plain, 
 " But where the grass is green with shady trees, 
 " And brooks stand ready for the kine to quaff. 
 " And hark ye, sirrah ! if I find thee out 
 " Milking the cows," — (and then he shook his 
 
 staff,) 
 " I'll lay my trusty cudgel so about 
 " Thy shoulders, that I'll paint them black and 
 
 " blue, 
 " Tho' they were hard as Pelops' !" — I withdrew, 
 And as I drove afield my lowing herd, 
 I sneez'd, and felt my right ear itch. — Good luck ! 
 Good luck ! cried I, and scarce had said the word, 
 When thro* the tamarisks your figure struck 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 51 
 
 Mine eye, and bounding forward I embraced 
 My Amarillis dear. — 
 
 Amarillis. And wert thou fain, 
 
 Poor Phcebidas, to toil, and starve, and bear 
 Insults, and threats, and all for love of me ? 
 
 leave the churl : — in Thessaly's domain 
 A kinder master and less wretched fare 
 May surely soon be found. 
 
 Phcebidas. That well may be ; 
 
 But Cymon is my uncle — childless — rich ! 
 And tho' from fear or avarice I would not 
 Endure his spleen, yet when I think that all 
 He leaves me will be thine, it doth bewitch 
 My fancy so, that I forget my lot, 
 And in the future lose my present thrall : — 
 Aye, and Til bear his wrangling, were his tongue 
 Louder than Cerberus ; — nay, he may use 
 My shoulders as he threatens, if at last 
 
 1 can but shower his riches on my young 
 
 e 2 
 
52 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT I. 
 
 And blooming shepherdess, nor she refuse 
 To love me better for my sufferings past. 
 
 Amarillis. Fie, Phcebidas ! thou shall not bear 
 
 a blow, 
 No, not an angry word, nor even a frown 
 For me. — I have a teeming goat, who tho' 
 She feeds two kids, yet never fails to crown 
 With cream two bowls a day, and mother vow'd 
 That when our next year's hymn to Pan was sung, 
 
 Our old cow, Phillis, should belong to me 
 
 Phcebidas. Yon heifer's somewhat meagre, that's 
 
 allow'd, 
 But she is mine, my twelvemonth's wages wrung 
 From thrifty Cymon ; — these in part would be 
 Stock for our farm. Four pails I have already, 
 Of cypress, carved with ivy round the rim, 
 And helichryse. — At once, then, let us marry; — 
 Tho' young, dear Amarillis, I am steady, 
 Of frugal habit, and athletic limb : 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 53 
 
 You are the same. — O why should lovers tarry 
 For richer store, when love itself is wealth? 
 
 Amarillis. Indeed I would be thine— but not by 
 stealth ; 
 My kind old mother first must give consent. 
 Home with my flock I'll hurry to implore 
 Her guidance, and may Venus bless the event ! — 
 In the heat of noon, when shadows of the sheep 
 Fall all beneath them, when green lizards bask 
 On sunny banks, and birds no longer soar 
 In the fiery sky, gather thy herd, and sleep 
 Beneath the shade, first quaffing from thy flask 
 A health to me. — Remember, and farewell ! 
 
 Phcebidas. 'Twill make my homely drink seem 
 muscadel. — 
 But where to meet again ? 
 
 Amarillis. Thou wilt not fail 
 
 When from the watering thou drivest home 
 Thy herd, to meet me at Pan's festival. 
 e 3 
 
54 AMARYNTHUS, |>CT I. 
 
 Phcebidas. I will be there tho' crusty Cymon 
 rail 
 Like Boreas ; but settle where thou'lt roam 
 To-morrow, lest some other chance befall 
 To interrupt our meeting, — 
 
 Amarillis. In the grove 
 
 Of almonds, near the mill, there is a dell, 
 Where scattered blossoms wing each blade of grass 
 With fluttering purple — there my flock shall rove 
 And wait thy coming, 
 
 Phcebidas. Well I know the pass 
 
 That leads into that flowery dingle. — Stay, 
 One kiss before we part. 
 
 Amarillis. There, there, away ! 
 
 May Pan be with thee, and thy footsteps bless ! 
 
 Phcebidas. All thanks and love, most gentle 
 shepherdess. 
 
 END OF ACT I. 
 
ACT II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 55 
 
 ACT THE SECOND. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The Vale of Tempe. 
 
 Celadon alone. 
 This Amarillis, tho' a rustic maid, 
 Still haunts me strangely. — She is plump and fresh 
 As a young Dryad born amid the shade, 
 And rock'd to sleep on boughs, upon whose flesh 
 The sun has never play'd. 
 My plot is well devised : if what is done 
 Succeed, 'twill humble these proud nymphs, — per- 
 chance 
 Subdue them to my wishes. 
 
 Amarynthus (entering). Celadon, 
 
 Can'st tell me, is Pan's festival concluded ? 
 Celadon. I saw it close even now. 
 e 4 
 
56 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT Ii; 
 
 Amarynthus. Thy countenance 
 
 Speaks of good sport. 
 
 Celadon, Unless I am deluded, 
 
 My sport is all to come ; but there has been 
 Good pastime since, for as I left the scene, 
 And hither wending cross'd the rushy brook 
 That huddles thro' yon yellow lea, 
 The roguish black-eyed Rhodope 
 Popp'd form a myrtle bush her head, and shook 
 Her tawny ringlets o'er her sun-burnt cheek, 
 Like a brown bunch of filberds, ripe and blushing ; 
 And, tittering, show'd her teeth more white and 
 
 sleek 
 Than the nut's core.—- Aside the branches pushing, 
 I gathered from her luscious lips the fruit, 
 Plucking up scores of kisses by the root ; 
 Nor freed the ruddy rustic from my arms, 
 Till passengers approached. — Where the leaves 
 
 shed, 
 In our rude sport make an inspiring bed, 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 57 
 
 Wearied, and flushed, and dreaming still of mirth, 
 Asleep she lies in all her mellow charms, 
 Like an o'er-ripe pomegranate dropp'd to earth. — 
 Say with what freaks dost thou amuse thy leisure ? 
 Amarynihus* The season is a flowing fount of 
 pleasure. — 
 O how delightful is the jolly spring, 
 When the warm blood leaps nimbly thro' the veins 
 And with the budding forth and blossoming 
 Of fields and groves, methinks the soul attains 
 Fresh life and greenness, wantons in the breeze, 
 Sings with the birds, and with the waving trees 
 Dances in unison. — The spring time gushes 
 In us as in the lusty grass and bushes, 
 And the same hand that o'er the meadow showers 
 King-cups and daisies, daffodils and pansies. 
 Garlands the human heart with all the flowers 
 Of love, hope, rapture, and poetic fancies. 
 If, when all nature feels this pregnant thrilling, 
 To its delicious promptings thou art mute, 
 
58 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Be sure that age begins with touches chilling 
 To freeze thy sap, and wither up thy root. 
 
 Celadon. By Phosphor's eye ! thou art an al- 
 ter'd man ! 
 What hast thou seen in Tempe that excites 
 Such rustic rant in an Athenian? 
 
 Amarynthus. This magic valley teems with 
 strange delights, 
 And sweet enchantments: 'tis the haunt of Pan. 
 Sounds more than human, and celestial sights, 
 And perfumes that o'ercome the sense of man, 
 Float wildly all about. — At times mine ear 
 Catches the sylvan god's ecstatic pipe, 
 Trilling a melody so sad and drear 
 For Syrinx' loss, that I am forced to wipe 
 Mine eyes ere I can look around to spy 
 Whence it proceeds ; but, like the cuckoo's song, 
 'Tis ever distant, and its source unseen. 
 
 Celadon. How know you then that it was Pan 
 you heard ? 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 59 
 
 Amarynthus. I felt it was. Could nature's self 
 be wrong, 
 Which, ever as this sweet lament occurr'd, 
 Would droop and wear a sympathising mien ? 
 The zephyrs closed their wings, or only stirr'd 
 To heave a sigh ; the goats, and herds, and flocks, 
 On all the fields and rocks, 
 
 Ceased browsing, and upturned their anxious eyes, 
 With aweful looks. Methought the very trees 
 Stood sorrow-struck, with pendent boughs, like ears, 
 List'ning the dirge. Yet with what ease 
 His charming pipe, when happier moods arise* 
 In voluble and jocund rhapsodies 
 Can madden into mirth whoever hears. 
 O what a merry, merry peal 
 Then will his glib and dulcet reed 
 Lavish in many a liquid reel, 
 While Echo with a rival speed 
 Upon the hill-tops dancing strains her throat 
 To double each reverberating note ! 
 
60 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Then Nature laughs outright ; the wild flowers 
 
 fling 
 Their incense up ; the cattle leap for glee ; 
 The jocund trees their branches toss on high 
 As if they clapp'd their hands ; the cloudless sky- 
 Smiles on the smiling earth, and every thing 
 Makes holiday and pranksome jubilee. 
 
 Celadon. This is Imagination's fashioning. 
 
 Amarynihus. And sometimes in the breathless 
 dead of night, 
 When Phcebe, like Narcissus, seems to look 
 Enamour'd on her picture in the brook, 
 And the hush'd valley sleeps in silver light, 
 Bursts on a sudden the resounding glee 
 Of revellers and rustic minstrelsy, 
 Oaten reeds and flageolets, 
 Timbrels, pipes, and taborets, 
 Which in cadence seem to beat 
 To the sound of dancing feet, 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 61 
 
 Mixt with laughter and the noise 
 
 Of Satyrs, Nymphs, and Sylvan boys, 
 
 Holding the court of Pan in all 
 
 The glee of gambols pastoral ; — 
 
 But when chanticleer's shrill cries 
 
 Summon morning to arise, 
 
 Suddenly all is hush'd, and the wide vale 
 
 In silence sleeps profoundly. 
 
 Celadon. Fitting tale 
 
 For dreamer's ears, for such strange melody 
 Hath many a shepherd conjured in his dreams, 
 Attributing to Pan the minstrelsy 
 That lull'd him in the summer shade to sleep. 
 The hum of bees, the guggling of the streams, 
 The song of birds, the tinkling bells of sheep, 
 The rustling branches play'd on by the wind, 
 The ploughman's whistle, and the goat-herd's pipe, 
 With lowing herds and bleating flocks combined, 
 These hath your fancy, fond, and over-ripe, 
 
62 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Tuned into choristers of Pan. The beat 
 Of hoofs, when cattle gambol on the sod, 
 Becomes the sound of nymphs' and satyrs' feet 
 Jocundly dancing round the Doric god. 
 Such are your day-dreams, such the visions are, 
 That night embodies. 
 
 Amarynihus. Yester break of day, 
 
 What time the glow-worm's lamp was quench'd in 
 
 dew, 
 And Lucifer, the last surviving star, 
 Seem'd with the whitening moon to stand at bay 
 Against the darts of morn, I chanced to stray 
 In the cool misty dawning through a grove, 
 Within whose leafiness I found 
 A wild fantastic lawn pavilion' d round 
 With flowers and shrubs, whose branches interwove 
 A fragrant fence of blossoms. On the grass, 
 Silver' d with dew, were prints of many feet, 
 Where the night dancers had impress'd the mead ; 
 A goat-skin sandal, too, emboss'd with brass, 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 63 
 
 A wreath of pine leaves, and a tambourine, 
 Lay on the turf beside an oaten reed, 
 Left by the Sylvans in their quick retreat. 
 Were these, too, visions, dreams ? 
 
 Celadon. Some rustic revel 
 
 Had been dispersed, and these the relics left. 
 Imaginations such as thine will level 
 All objects to one view, and that mistaken* 
 Visions for thee ! thank Jove I am bereft 
 Of fancy, and realities pursue. 
 Dreamer ! 1 know thou'dst rather be forsaken 
 By such a man of fact ; and so, adieu ! 
 I'll hie to watch the workings of my plot. {Exit* 
 
 Amaryn. (after a pause.) What is the nature of 
 man's soul, and what 
 Its final fate ? That's the oppressive doubt 
 That eats into my brain, and seems to gnaw 
 E'en my heart's core. I shall go mad without 
 Some revelation of this hidden law. 
 Ye elements of whom 
 
64 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II* 
 
 This body is compounded, and from whose 
 
 Mysterious mixture springs the subtle soul, 
 
 Reveal to me its nature and its doom. 
 
 When did my sympathising sense refuse 
 
 To bow to your controul, 
 
 Or vibrate to your smallest impulses ? 
 
 Is there a sight of earth, a watery sound, 
 
 A touch of zephyr, or a sunny ray, 
 
 That does not waken its affinities, 
 
 Cooped in this tegument of clay, 
 
 And make them yearn to burst their narrow bound ? 
 
 Since then my soul rejoices, 
 
 To listen to your voices, 
 
 And to your lowest whisper gives reply ; 
 
 Ye parent elements ! list now to me : 
 
 O hear my solemn cry, 
 
 And let a tongue be found to fling, 
 
 Shouting from fire, earth, air, or sea, 
 
 Answers to my most resolute questioning. 
 
 Hark ! Hark ! a voice ! 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 65 
 
 CEnone sings without. 
 Apollo was tending Admetus's sheep, 
 With his seven-reed pipe, and his wild olive crook, 
 When weary with watching he fell fast aleep, 
 And the wondering nymphs gather'd round him 
 to look 
 On the placid grace, 
 Of his heavenly face, 
 And his locks that around him a lustre shook. 
 
 CEnone enters. 
 Amaryn. O bitter disappointment ! 'tis CEnone. 
 Fair oracle, how ran thy prophecy ? 
 
 " From fancied visions he shall be 
 " Relieved by their reality." 
 It is not yet accomplish'd. 
 
 CEnone. Time will show 
 
 All things, — calmly await thy destiny. 
 
66 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Amarynthus. O Panomphaean Jove ! help me to 
 pierce 
 This only secret. Draw the curtain up 
 That hides futurity, or tear it down, 
 I care not which, so thou canst ease these fierce 
 Questionings of my spirit. — 
 
 O thou most beautiful pageant of the world, 
 O glorious sun and moon, sea, earth, and sky, 
 Shall I plod blindly on through life's worn maze, 
 Nor ask by whom your wonders were unfurled ? 
 Sun ! shall I fix on thee my dying eye, 
 Nor e'er have learnt who set thee in a blaze ? 
 Earth ! shall I tread upon thee but to be 
 Down trodden, and partake man's grovelling doom, 
 Earth-born, earth-swallowed, — eating, — eaten, 
 
 — dust ! 
 O let me leap alive into my tomb, 
 If there the secret is reveal' d to us, 
 For all our human fables I distrust. 
 Ccelus, and Ops, and Terra are to me 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 67 
 
 No vouchers for the past, nor Tartarus 
 And Hades for futurity. 
 
 (Enone sings* 
 So he dug a hole in the earth we're told, 
 And utter' d his secret, and filled in the mould, 
 
 But the reeds that shot, 
 
 From that tell-tale spot, 
 Whispered the wind, and the world soon hears 
 That great King Midas has ass's ears, {Exit. 
 
 Amarynthus. Poor crazy babbler ! yet from lips 
 like these, 
 Deep hints will sometimes drop : — whisper' d the 
 
 earth ? 
 Perhaps among earth's buried mysteries 
 This secret sleeps 
 In her silent deeps, 
 
 And, when invoked, her lips may give it birth, 
 f 2 
 
68 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 O mother Earth, thou grave,most dread and dumb, 
 Of countless races of mysterious man, 
 With all his hopes and fears since time began ; 
 Thou cradle of eternity to come, 
 With all its world of wonders undivulged, 
 Thee I invoke ! 
 
 Thee by the myriad embryos that reside 
 In thy vast bosom waiting animation, 
 W T ith future fruits and harvests by their side, 
 Food of a yet unorganis'd creation : 
 Thee by the acoin, which a breath may blow 
 From its carved cup upon thy nursing lap, 
 Rock'd by the breath of ages, till it grow 
 A rooted giant, frowning at the blast, 
 And shake not at the roaring thunder-clap : 
 Thee by the trembling violet, which eyes 
 The sun but once, and unrepining dies : 
 Thee by that sun, whose eye, as bright as ever, 
 Saw thee upheave from chaos, and shall burn 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 69 
 
 Undimmed when all thy teguments shall sever, 
 
 And to their primal elements return. 
 
 By all the winds that rustle in thy woods 
 
 To chime of piping beaks and bleating sheep ; 
 
 By the dead silence of thy solitudes, 
 
 And the unwhispered secrets of the deep i < ; 
 
 Thee I invoke ! 
 
 By the delicious summer evenings 
 
 Diffusing peace o'er all thy green expanse; 
 
 By th' earthquake's rumbling agony that flings 
 
 Horror on every living countenance, 
 
 And makes the teeth of buried kings 
 
 Chatter beneath their granite pyramids ; 
 
 Earth, I invoke thee ! — 
 
 All, all is hush'd ; — no whisper, — no reply, — 
 
 I shall go mad with eager agony. 
 
 [Runs out. 
 
 v 3 
 
70 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Interior of a Forest. 
 
 Urania, Dryope. 
 
 jJrt/ope. My dainty spirit, whither hast thou 
 
 wandered ? — 
 Here in the green shade have I sat and pondered 
 Upon thy flight, looking with eyes that glisten r d 
 Heavenward, to trace thy shadowy career, 
 Or with unbreathing mouth have listen'd 
 The flutter of thy wings to hear. 
 What mean those playful smiles and smothered 
 
 titters, 
 And that tiara in thy hand that glitters ? 
 
 Urania. When Orpheus in the frantic brawls 
 Of the Ciconian bacchanals 
 Was slain, and cast on Hebrus' wave, 
 Reading your thoughts I sped to save 
 His magic lyre, Apollo's gift, 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 71 
 
 Which from the river's golden sands 
 I pluck'd, and ere you guess'd my drift, 
 Laid it upon your thrilling hands. — 
 With this as late I roam'd the air, 
 Waking its silver sweetness rare, 
 I perch'd upon the midway ledge 
 Of a vast cliff, whose toppling edge 
 Awes th* iEgean brine, and there, 
 On a green slope of samphire laid, 
 So ravishing a strain I play'd, 
 That the gruff winds and rattling shore 
 In breathless wonder ceased their roar. 
 When, lo ! from out the silent main 
 O what a noble pageant sprung ! 
 Amphitrite fair and young, 
 Prank' d in full pride, with all her train 
 Of Tritons, sea-gods, and the sleek 
 Nereides of peachy cheek, 
 All paragons except when seen 
 Beside their all-eclipsing queen* 
 f 4 
 
72 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 She on a silvery car on high 
 
 Sate like a goddess, awefully. 
 
 Her arm of alabaster whiteness, 
 
 Lovely and round, with graceful lightness 
 
 A sceptre poised ;. — her blue-vein'd foot. 
 
 Whose sandal flamed with rubies, fell 
 
 On the car's front of curling shell, 
 
 And thus, while all her train were m ute, 
 
 Her swan-like neck, with smiles of pleasure,* 
 
 She bent, to listen to my measure* 
 
 Then in the stillness might I hear 
 
 A whisper breath'd in Glaucus' ear, 
 
 To bind me with a braid of flowers, 
 
 And bear me to her coral bowers. 
 
 Ere the god had left her car, 
 
 Down darting like a shooting star. 
 
 From her odorous glossy head, 
 
 With shells and sea-flowers garlanded, 
 
 I twitch'd this crown of lucid spar. 
 
 Crimson'd were her cheeks with ire, 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 73 
 
 And her blue eyes sparkled fire, 
 
 While the sea stood shuddering, 
 
 As I fled on arrowy wing, 
 
 And many a furious blast was torn 
 
 From conch, and shell, and twisted horn, 
 
 With shrieks, and shoutings, and the lashing 
 
 Of the whole tram's tumultuous dashing ; 
 
 But in a second, high careering, 
 
 I was out of sight and hearing. 
 
 Ere a grasshopper could jump 
 
 An ant-hill or a daisy clump, 
 
 Over meadow, moor, and mountain, 
 
 Forest, river, lake, and fountain, 
 
 At a bound I took my flight, 
 
 Flitting like a flash of light, 
 
 And here upon my bended knee, 
 
 Present the starry gem to thee, 
 
 My honor'd queen and deity. 
 
 Dry ope. My tricksome spirit, arch and debon- 
 naire, 
 
74 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Who in your native winds delight to gambol, 
 Thanks for your sparkling bauble, but beware 
 Lest in your truant wantonness you ramble 
 Beyond earth's verge. Fain would I have a string 
 To hold thee flying, like a favorite sparrow, 
 And pluck thee back at will. 
 
 Urania. Alas ! my wing 
 
 Is tied already to these confines narrow ; 
 *Tis earthly now, and if I strove to fly 
 Up to those altitudes where spirits revel, 
 With pinion clogg'd, like Icarus, should I 
 Tumble again to earth's degrading level. — 
 When this terrestrial fetter is no more, 
 Your denser air cannot contain my lightness, 
 But like an exhalation I shall soar 
 Into the purity of blue and brightness. 
 Soon may it be ! 
 
 Dryope. And hast thou twitch'd this jewel 
 
 That I might set thee free ? 
 
 Urania. O nymph of earth ! 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 75 
 
 Thou canst not free me from this bondage cruel, 
 Till thou hast loved a form of mortal birth. 
 
 Dryope. What ! I, a daughter of the woods, 
 caress 
 A vase of painted clay, to-morrow's dust, 
 And lips of everlasting rose impress 
 Upon the mouldering red that quickly must, 
 Take kisses from the worm ? — If this must be 
 Ere thou art free, 
 Thine is a long captivity. 
 
 Urania, Yet I, a ranger of the firmament, 
 Born of the air, and dieted with light, — 
 Yes, I, no longer with celestials winging 
 The wilds of space, my foot to earth could stoop, 
 And love a wood-god. 
 
 Dryope. Say, enamoured, say 
 
 How chanced this luckless flame. 
 
 Urania. O bitter story ! 
 
 And yet delightful too. What raptures troop 
 To every pulse as I recall the day. 
 
76 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 List to my shame — self slanderer ! — to my glory. 
 
 While floating near the earth a sound ascended 
 
 From the green heart of rustic Arcady, 
 
 Voices of fauns and satyrs, blended 
 
 With horns, and shouts of revelry. 
 
 With bugles resounding, 
 
 Thro' woodlands surrounding, 
 
 Hunting the roebuck the sylvans were bounding, 
 
 While echo on high, 
 
 Gave reply to the cry, 
 
 As if she were chacing a stag thro' the sky. 
 
 Where thro' the wood of Venus flows 
 
 The river Ladon I descended, 
 
 But now the chace was ended, 
 
 And all around me was a sweet repose. 
 
 Thro' an arcade of boughs I glided, 
 
 And that delicious margin traced, 
 
 Until the gentle waves divided, 
 
 Where in the midst an island placed, 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 77 
 
 Heaved its green bosom to the breeze, 
 
 Beneath a wilderness of trees. 
 
 Pine, cedar, chesnut gave on high, 
 
 Thro' giant arms a snatch of sky, 
 
 While quivering in mid air were seen 
 
 Larch, aspen, ash, acacia bright, 
 
 Like floating clouds of vivid green, 
 
 Tipp'd with laburnum's sunny light. 
 
 Beneath them was a blooming bower 
 
 Of laurel, myrtle, arbutus, 
 
 Wreath'd with each wild and odorous flower 
 
 That perfumes Arcady. 
 
 Dryope, What made you thus 
 
 Minutely mark that nest of loveliness ? 
 
 Urania. At first I saw no loveliness but one : 
 But I have ever since at fall of even 
 Haunted the spot, and with my song 
 Have lullabied to sleep the setting sun, 
 Till on my heart is stamped that leafy heaven. 
 
78 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Dry ope. Child of the clouds pursue thy tale : 
 I long 
 To hear its sequel. 
 
 Urania. Underneath the cope 
 
 Of that seclusion deep, 
 Tired with the chace, upon a mossy slope, 
 Lay Faunus fast asleep ! 
 Upon his out-stretched arm, whose hand 
 Loosely touch'd his cornel spear, 
 His cheek was pillow' d, flush'd, and tann'd 
 With sports of sylvan cheer. 
 His graceful neck adown 
 Hung grape-like clusters of the darkest locks, 
 While some upon his shoulder brown, 
 (But smooth as Pelops') by the wind were blown. 
 Dream of his form, for portraiture it mocks. 
 O never did the elements combine 
 An adolescence so divine. 
 Thus in the exquisite glory 
 Of nature's manly spring, 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 79 
 
 Warm'd with autumnal coloring, 
 
 He lay on that embower'd promontory, 
 
 Dryope. Thy sparkling eyes and kindling cheek. 
 More eloquently than thy language speak. 
 
 Urania. Deep were his slumbers, for the trees 
 Fann'd by the murmuring breeze, 
 Attuned their lulling harmony 
 To the low hum of bees ; 
 And round about the waters gushing, 
 Seem'd but a gentle hushing, 
 That join'd the strain and sang his lullaby. 
 Upon the stream a bridling swan 
 Floated in snowy stateliness, full plumed, 
 Gazing upon him with a stedfast eye, 
 And ever as the current bore her on, 
 Her station she resumed, 
 And gazed again more earnestly. 
 Methought it was the genius of the place, 
 Taking that form of grace, 
 To sit beside him, watchfully. 
 
80 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Dryope. Could'st thou behold so sweet a scene 
 unmoved ? 
 
 Urania. Ah, me! I did not. Tremblingly, 
 By that ineffable symmetry alighting, 
 Silent I stood and gaz'd, nor knew I lov'd, 
 Till mine I laid upon his lips inviting, 
 Gently, and from that nectary 
 Intoxication drew. With sudden glee 
 Amid the leaves melodious laughter sounded, 
 And looking up I might espy 
 Cupid's white teeth, and mark'd his silver bow, 
 As from his nest he bounded, 
 And sought on purple wings the sky. 
 
 Dryope. Awoke not then the sleeping boy 
 below ? 
 
 Urania. I saw no more, before my vision dim, 
 The landscape seem'd to swim ; 
 My tingling blood diffused a blush 
 Of fire thro* every limb, 
 And in mine ears I heard the gush 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 81 
 
 Of mighty waters. Wingless before, 
 
 Then first from my unconscious shoulders started 
 
 These pinions, badges of my degradation. 
 
 Dryope. Wingless! then how could'st thou 
 upsoar 
 Into the spheres ? 
 
 Urania. At simple will I darted 
 
 Above, below. Wherever inclination 
 Prompted, with ease I clove the sky. 
 
 Dryope. Such power have I possess'd in dreams. 
 
 Urania. Now levell'd with the birds I cannot fly 
 Without this cumbrous aid. 
 
 Dryope. Graceful it seems 
 
 To me, and beautiful ; but quick resume 
 Thy tale, I pant to know thy doom. 
 
 Urania. Recovering from my trance, 
 I found myself alone within a grove, 
 And then bethought me of Pan's ordonnance 
 Against forbidden love : — 
 
82 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 That she of air who kiss'd a lip of earth, 
 
 Should be earth-bound, resign the firmament, 
 
 And mansions of her birth, 
 
 To serve what nymph of wood, or fount, or grot, 
 
 She first might meet in that abandonment. 
 
 Thee, gentle mistress ! thee, by happy lot, 
 
 Did I encounter first : thy tenderness 
 
 Hath sweeten' d servitude. May my poor heart 
 
 By ever prompt docility express 
 
 Its gratitude. 
 
 Dryope. Urania mine ! thou art 
 
 Most dear to me, — not servitor, but friend. 
 Believe me, now, thy sadly tuneful tale, 
 Breathing of love and leaves unto its end, 
 Hath left within my breast a thrilling tnrob : 
 But said'st thou not, unless remembrance fail, 
 That I could set thee free ? 
 
 Urania. Forgive this sob ; 
 
 Nor ye, celestial playmates, mark the tear 
 That does not gush for you, but one more dear, 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 83 
 
 Tho' an earth ranger. As I lost the skies 
 For having loved a wood-god, so, should'st thou 
 Press but thy lips to those of mortal man, 
 Thine were the penalty, and mine the prize ; 
 For thou to mortal destinies must bow, 
 And in that instant I should soar sublime. 
 Such the commandment of all-loving Pan, 
 To keep each race distinct, yet not chastise 
 More than one sentient being at a time. 
 
 Dryope. I pity thee, Urania, for I fear 
 If such the terms, thou never canst be free 
 But be of happy cheer, 
 For light and loving shall thy service be 
 Be it thy present task to twine a wreath 
 Of oak leaves with their apples. 
 
 Urania. To adorn 
 
 Thy radiant brow ? 
 
 Dry ope. Sweet captive, no ; — beneath 
 
 The giant oak which wandering woodmen call 
 g 2 
 
/ 
 
 84 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Diana's canopy, there is this morn 
 
 A meeting of the wood-nymphs, to elect 
 
 Our summer chief, whose office is in all 
 
 Solemnities and pastimes to direct 
 
 Our jocund sisterhood. She to whom falls 
 
 This dignity, in a wild chaunt we hail 
 
 Queen, and bedeck her with our coronals. 
 
 Follow me thither quick. [Exit. 
 
 Urania. I will not fail. 
 
 O I have seen a youth so bright, 
 And mortal too, that Dryope, 
 If once he met her ravish'd sight, 
 Would be enslaved and I set free. 
 This shall be done 
 Before the sun 
 Sinks into the ruddy sea. 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 85 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 The open Country, 
 
 Chabrias, Theucarila, Celadon, Doris, Shep- 
 herds and Shepherdesses, meeting Amarillis, 
 chaunt in Chorus. 
 
 Happy, happy, Amarillis ! 
 Whom our God with aweful voice 
 Hath made the priestess of his choice ; 
 Wear the virgin wreath of lilies, 
 Wear the holy robe and rod, 
 Chosen priestess of our god ; 
 Happy, happy, Amarillis I 
 
 Doris. O daughter, daughter, what a happy 
 pass ! 
 Priestess of Pan ? — O Jupiter ! 
 
 Celadon. Forbear, 
 
 Good Doris ; hold thy peace, for Chabrias 
 Will tell the tale. 
 
 g 3 
 
86 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Chabrias. Damsel, with reverent ear 
 
 And grateful heart attend. A prodigy 
 Hath call'd thee to the temple, call'd by name ; 
 For in our rites as we advanced to twine 
 A wreath around Pan's statue, lo ! a cry 
 Was heard, and from his marble lips there came 
 In aweful accents this command divine, — 
 
 " Theucarila ! no more approach my fane, 
 
 " Let Amarillis as my priestess reign. " 
 Obedient to this mandate, holy maid, 
 We hail thee priestess, coming to lead thee hence 
 Unto our fane, where thou shalt be array'd 
 With all solemnity and reverence. 
 
 Theucarila. And here I tender thee the rod and 
 robe, 
 And holy wreath, symbols of office. How 
 I have offended the benignant Pan 
 Baffles conjecture. I have tried to probe 
 My heart, and find it faithful to its vow : 
 But I must bow my head beneath his ban. 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 87 
 
 Humbly, striving to hide my shame, and heal 
 The bitter desolation I endure. 
 Mayst thou be happier than I ! thy zeal 
 As fervent, and thine honours more secure. 
 
 Amarillis. What means this mockery? dear 
 mother, I 
 Am all bewilder'd : greeted thus, and stiled 
 Priestess of Pan! Me, Amarillis, me, 
 So lowly born ! 
 
 Doris. Lowly, forsooth ! 'twould try 
 
 The temper of a dove: why, tell me, child, 
 Was not thy grandsire's wife, old Crocale, 
 Aunt to Pelopidas the rich ? For shame ! 
 Lowly, indeed ! 
 
 Amarillis. Nay, mother, do not blame. 
 But pity me ; I know not what I say. 
 With pious reverence I would obey 
 Great Pan's behest ; and yet, alas ! I feel 
 It cannot be. 
 
 Doris. What next will come to pass ? 
 
 g 4 
 
88 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Arnarillis. My heart will burst, unless I may 
 reveal 
 Its burden. Mother, didst thou not consent 
 Just now that I should wed with Phoebidas ? 
 
 Doris. Tush ! — 'twas before I knew this high 
 event. 
 A priestess talk of marriage ! O profane ! 
 
 Chabrias. Chosen of Pan, thou must devote thy 
 years 
 To chastity, all former ties forsaking : 
 On to the temple. 
 
 Doris. Daughter, dry thy tears. 
 
 Arnarillis. How can I, mother, when my heart 
 is breaking. 
 [ They lead her out in procession, singing. 
 
 Happy, happy Arnarillis ! 
 Whom our god with aweful voice 
 Hath made the priestess of his choice ; 
 Wear the virgin wreath of lilies, 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 89 
 
 Wear the holy robe and rod, 
 Chosen priestess of our god, 
 Happy, happy Amarillis. 
 
 Celadon [remains). My plot hath answer' d won- 
 drously : — 'twas I, 
 Conceal'd beneath the statue's base, that feign'd - 
 Pan's aweful voice, and wrought this prodigy. 
 How soon these pious rustics are cajoled ! 
 Perhaps I may no longer be disdain'd 
 Now that Theucarila is uncontroll'd. 
 Be she or Amarillis kind, or loth, 
 At all events I am revenged on both. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The Vale of Tempe. 
 
 Amarynthus. 
 O matron goddess, Cybele, who didst bow 
 From heaven thy tower'd head to bless 
 
90 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 The Phrygian shepherd boy : Diana, thou, 
 Who in thy lunar car didst nightly haunt 
 Latmos, where slept in lonely dreaminess 
 The Arcadian herdsman; and thou too, love's 
 
 essence, 
 Venus, who from enamour'd gods didst slip, 
 In Cretan woods to lip, 
 
 The smooth cheek'd hunter, or on Ida's crest 
 The blooming son of Themis bless'd ; 
 Say, ye celestials, did ye fear to daunt 
 Your lovers by revealing 
 This secret, never utter' d in man's presence, 
 Or were ye bound by oath to its concealing ? 
 Perchance its deadly blazon may not be 
 Knell'd with impunity 
 In the so fragile shell of mortal ear ; 
 Speak not the less altho' your breath 
 Strike me with instant death, 
 For I had rather die, 
 Seeing futurity with vision clear, 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 91 
 
 Than live in this benighted agony : — 
 
 Shout, then, I charge ye, shout, 
 
 God, goddess, daemon, genius, nymph, or ghost, 
 
 Altho' your tongue in thunder chase my doubt, 
 
 And your eyes' lightning wither up each vein ; 
 
 Or in a whispering hush mine ear accost, 
 
 And drop the secret in its porch, 
 
 Altho' like Aconite it scorch 
 
 With madd'ning fire each chamber of my brain. 
 
 GEnone enters. 
 
 (Enone. Be hush'd ye waters, woods, and waves, 
 while I, 
 In mute idolatry, 
 Bow to the mighty spirit of the mountain. 
 
 Amarynthus. What mountain speak'st thou of? 
 
 CEnone. Parnassus, where 
 
 Glorious Apollo reigns. 
 
 Amarynthus. As I sat quoting 
 Alcmaeon once by the Castalian fountain 
 
92 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 (Enone. Hush, hush ! no more, — those lovely 
 arms, — there, there ! 
 They strike the harp. 
 
 How sweet, and yet how stern, — hark, hark ! 
 O save me, save me, from those threatenings sharp. 
 
 Amarynthus. Be calm (Enone ; these are visions. 
 
 (Enone. Mark, 
 
 How it swims up and melts into the air. 
 It was no vision ! but 'tis gone, and I 
 Am left again in wildering misery. 
 
 She sings. 
 When Dido, love-lorn wife, 
 
 Laid her head upon the pyre, 
 She lost at once her life 
 
 And her passion in the fire. 
 
 But what must she endure 
 Who feeds a hopeless flame, 
 
 And seeks in vain a cure 
 For love, and life, and shame. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 93 
 
 Amaryn. Leave me, OEnone ; I am rapt in high 
 Musings and invocations : why dost thou haunt 
 My wanderings ? 
 
 OEnone. Fiercer spirits than I 
 
 Shall haunt thee soon. Musings and invocations ? 
 What ! think'st thou that thy conjurings can daunt , 
 CEnone ? Breathe thy darkest adjurations, 
 I will stand by thee though the invisible world 
 Yawn to thy summons, all unfurl'd. 
 I have seen th' Olympian Psychagogi 
 Conjure up spirits of the dead, then why 
 May I not aid thy harmless incantations ? 
 Answers to our joint summons we will win, 
 For the nymphs of earth or air 
 The secret shall declare, 
 So begin ! begin ! begin ! 
 
 Amarynthus. Uraniae, fair immortals of the sky, 
 Give ear unto my cry, 
 If to your azure domes and halls of marble, 
 A parley wafted on the daring breath 
 
94 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Of man may climb. If not, 
 
 O Epigeiae, who claim your birth, 
 
 Like me, from this maternal earth, 
 
 List, while in turn I summon ye to warble 
 
 From fount or ocean, grove, or mountain grot, 
 
 Oracular song or hymn, 
 
 To chace this ignorance dim, 
 
 Which makes light dark, and life itself a death. 
 
 GEnone singing. 
 Hear, hear, hear! 
 From earth or sky, 
 O nymphs reply, 
 Appear, appear, appear! 
 
 Amarynthus. Oreades ! nymphs of the mountain 
 rushing 
 From the so haunted Paphlagonian cave ; 
 What time Aurora blushing, 
 Veils with her glittering locks the morning star, 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 95 
 
 Your horns and voices near and far, 
 
 Re-echo, till in virgin beauty grave, 
 
 The heavenly huntress of the silver bow, 
 
 Dian, descend among ye ; then ye bound 
 
 (Your rosy charms robust, 
 
 With jocund health and sylvan ardour flush'd,) 
 
 Over the hills and downs like sunny flashes, 
 
 While from the fern the roebuck dashes 
 
 Into the nearest brakes, 
 
 And with his antlers shakes 
 
 Upon his dappled coat the dew-drops round. 
 
 Returning to your grot, 
 
 Landscaped with evergreens and nodding flowers, 
 
 Upon your mossy couches ye recline, 
 
 Quaffing the fruits, and milk, and honey wine, 
 
 Which every pious goatherd faileth not 
 
 To drop within, as offerings to your powers. 
 
 O quiver'd virgins, leave the feast and cup, 
 
 Oreades, up, up ! 
 
96 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Nor stay to braid your wind-blown locks, 
 Bat from your niches in the rocks, 
 Hear me, O hear, and give reply 
 Unto my solemn cry. 
 
 OEnone singing. 
 Hear, hear, hear ! 
 Nymphs of the hill, 
 Our wishes fulfil, 
 Appear, appear, appear! 
 
 Amarynihus. Ye Naiads, who in fountains floating, 
 Your azure eyes upturn, 
 To watch the weeping Hyades denoting 
 Replenishment to each exhausted urn ; 
 Or from Apollo stealing, 
 Unto some moist and silent cave, 
 Your heads on flaky lilies propping, 
 List idly to the water dropping, 
 From the top, drip ! drop ! 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 97 
 
 Oozing from the mossy ceiling 
 
 Drowsily upon the wave. 
 
 And chiefly ye, 
 
 Enamour'd three, 
 
 Eunica, Malis, and Nycheia fair, 
 
 Who in your rocky cistern dancing, 
 
 Saw, from the Argonauts advancing, 
 
 Hylas, the curly Hylas, with his vase, 
 
 And as he stoop'd to fill it, seiz'd his hand, 
 
 And pluck' d him to your amorous embrace, 
 
 Deaf to his comrades' cries that fill'd the air, 
 
 Till " Hylas ! Hylas !" rang along the Pontic 
 
 strand : 
 Roused by my invocation stern, 
 O cease your sports, and from your hollow urn, 
 As from a trumpet shout, 
 
 4 
 
 A response that may chace this madd'ning doubt. 
 Hear me, I charge ye, hear, and give reply, 
 Unto my solemn cry. 
 
 H 
 
98 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 CEnone singing. 
 Hear, hear, hear ! 
 O nymphs of the urn, 
 An answer return : 
 Appear, appear, appear! 
 
 Amarynthus. Daughters of Doris, sleek Nereides, 
 Ye lily-bosom'd Graces of the ocean, 
 Riding in its commotion, 
 The breakers, Neptune's coursers of the seas ; 
 Or whether in the calm Eubcean bay, 
 Nereides, ye play, 
 Where the waves softly creep, 
 With hushing lips to kiss the yellow sand, 
 The while Arion's magic hand 
 With melting music soothes the deep : 
 Or in your crystal grottoes flash'd with spar, 
 On sea-weed couches if ye sleep, 
 Lull'd by the watery roar, 
 Of some tempestuous shore, 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 99 
 
 Booming faintly from afar ; 
 
 Or if your sisterhood, perchance, 
 
 The court of Neptune haunts, 
 
 In the saloons of Amphitrite's coral 
 
 Palace weaving the delirious dance, 
 
 While Sappho, garlanded with laurel, 
 
 Melodious songs and hymns of triumph chaunts ; 
 
 Let my dread summons with a tongue of iron 
 
 Knock at your palace gates, 
 
 And with prompt ear your challenger environ, 
 
 For he demands, not supplicates, 
 
 That ye should hear his quest, and give reply 
 
 Unto his solemn cry. ' 
 
 CEnone singing. 
 Hear, hear, hear ! 
 Nymphs of the sea, 
 Attend to our plea ; 
 Appear, appear, appear ! 
 
 h2 
 
100 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II. 
 
 Amarynthus. O boon and buxom daughters of 
 
 the wood, 
 Who in mute wonder stood, 
 Beneath polluted Myrrha's sighing branches, 
 (Who with her bitter tears her crime embalms,) 
 And watch'd her procreant bark the while it 
 
 launches 
 The young Adonis to your trembling palms ; 
 Dryads and Hamadryads, ye 
 Who haunt this antique greenery, 
 Whether on beds of moss, curtained by boughs, 
 Within your oaky bowers ye are lying, 
 And with the chant of birds your ears carouse ; 
 Or mid the copses flying 
 From chace of Faunus and his sylvanry, 
 Ye scare the dappled does who browse 
 In lonely fearfulness, O troop, when bidden, 
 To one who with deep reverence resorts 
 To view your pastoral sports ; 
 And if your sacred graces must be hidden, 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 101 
 
 Within these laurel arbours take your station, 
 
 And utter thence your revelation, 
 
 Or let me from some Dodonaean oak 
 
 Your oracle evoke. 
 
 Ye rosy foresters, for ever young, 
 
 Ye greenwood rovers, debonnaire, O hear ! 
 
 Hie hither from your leafy cabinets, 
 
 Your green alcoves and arks, 
 
 Whether in brakes or fastnesses, 
 
 Dells, verdant coves, or single trees, 
 
 For, lo ! the morn is blushing, and the larks 
 
 Salute her from the sky with piping tongue, 
 
 While all the woodlands ring to chanticleer. 
 
 Leave, O leave, your sports and loves, 
 
 And list awhile to me ; 
 
 Me, Dryads ! me, a burgess of the groves, 
 
 For I am stern and desperate in my plea. 
 
 Hear then, I charge ye, hear, and give reply 
 
 Unto my solemn cry. 
 
 h 3 
 
102 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT II* 
 
 OEnone sings. 
 Hear, hear, hear ! 
 Nymphs of the grove, 
 Wherever ye rove, 
 Appear, appear, appear! 
 
 Amarynthus. What ! is the world struck dumb ? 
 no sound, no sight ? 
 O earth, or air, speak for the love of mercy. 
 My brain, my brain! I shall go mad outright. 
 
 [Exit. 
 CEnone. Nature was dumb even to th' enchant- 
 ress Circe, 
 And unto all she still preserves her calm 
 And resolute silence — unto all but me. 
 In that alone my sorrows find a balm. 
 Did he not speak of love ? I had a lover 
 Once, and most dear to me ; but all is over, 
 All gone, gone, gone ! so do not tell Apollo. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 103 
 
 heavens ! methinks I see Apollo yonder 
 In all his beauty's wonder. 
 
 1 know him by the beams that gush 
 
 From out his locks : nay, do not let him follow 
 
 Till I have hid me in yon woody cover. 
 
 I'll steal to it on tiptoe. Hush, hush, hush ! 
 
 [Exit. 
 
 END OF ACT II. 
 
 IJ 4 
 
104 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT J J J. 
 
 ACT THE THIRD. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A Cave in Mount Homole* 
 
 Enter Amarillis and Phcebidas. 
 
 Phcebidas. Lean, Amarillis, upon me; the mouth 
 Of the cave is reach'd at last. 
 
 Amarillis. Thus to depart 
 
 From the temple secretly I fear was wrong. 
 Yet in hypocrisy to waste my youth, 
 And act the priestess when my rebel heart 
 To my dear Phcebidas must still belong, 
 Would have been deeper wickedness. O Pan, 
 Forgive me ! 
 
 Phcebidas. Nay, cheer up, all's well, 
 For the stars favour'd our escape. Last night 
 I watch'd the bright-eyed Bear till he began 
 To set ; and when Orion shone, I fell 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 105 
 
 Upon my knees, imploring that our flight 
 Might prosper ; softly then I drew 
 To the temple, and received you in my arms* 
 Arnarittis. As we came hither, in the distant 
 blue, 
 I saw the Pleiades arising, clear 
 From clouds ; that's a good omen, is it not ? 
 
 Phcebidas, Doubtless ; for me, I never felt 
 alarms 
 Since lambent on my right I saw arise 
 Castor and Pollux. 
 
 Amarillis. Heaven smiles upon our plot. 
 
 See with what flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes 
 The hill-tops tell us they have seen the sun I 
 'Tis a sweet scene ; but will this open grot 
 Conceal me ? There will be close pursuit. 
 
 Phcebidas. Not one 
 
 Will venture here ; for every where 'tis thought 
 That by an angry nymph this cave is haunted. 
 No straying goat within it will be sought^ 
 
106 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 But with his pipe or voice the goat-herd, daunted, 
 Awaits below, and tries to coax it out. 
 This is our cue, for you must represent 
 This angry nymph. Should bolder feet be treading 
 About your hiding place, to chace all doubt 
 You must put on this scarf and garland, meant 
 To imitate the nymph's ; and with upbraiding 
 Tongue be ready to chastise them back. 
 
 Amarillis. What brought this artifice into your 
 mind? 
 
 Phcebidas. Dear Amarillis, love will never lack 
 Expedients for success. 
 
 Amarillis. But how am I 
 
 To live meanwhile ? 
 
 Phcebidas. A crystal spring you'll find 
 
 In the white marble, purer than the dew 
 In a lily's bell, and hither will I hie 
 At night with fruits and cream, and honey press'd 
 Fresh from the comb. Into my scrip I threw 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 107 
 
 A Doric cake, and flask of muscadel, 
 For present use. This cave shall be the nest 
 O'er which I'll hover, feeding thee as well 
 And tenderly as stock-doves do their young. 
 
 Amarillis. Shall I not see thee in the day ? 
 
 Phcebidas. My herd 
 
 Cannot be browsed upon the mount, for so 
 The heifers might devour with eager tongue 
 The poisonous budding brooms ; but 'tis averr'd 
 That in the shrubby bottoms down below 
 (Although they be not used) there are rich plots 
 Of pasture, thymy hillocks, and sweet spots, 
 Where honey-bells, wild oats, and celandine, 
 With maiden-hair and asphodel entwine. 
 There they may browse, and I may sometimes steal 
 To visit thee ; for few explore this wild, 
 Unless some wandering wood-keeper should come 
 To gather faggots. 
 
 Amarillis. I meanwhile will kneel 
 
 Hourly to Pan till he be reconciled 
 
108 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 To this bold flight. Surely we must by some 
 Misdeed have anger'd him, or he would ne'er 
 Frown on our loves. 
 
 Phcebidas. Last week, in thoughtful mood, 
 
 Crossing the mead behind the temple, where 
 Browses the sacred herd, a heifer stood 
 Athwart my path, which I unguardedly 
 Struck with my staff. 
 
 Amarillis. O sacrilegious blow ! 
 
 One of the sacred herd ! Didst thou not spy 
 Pan's symbol branded on its side, to show 
 That it was meant for sacrifice ? 
 
 Phcebidas. No, not 
 
 Until the heifer bounded o'er the lea. 
 
 Amarillis. This, doubtless, is the cause of all 
 our trouble. 
 You must make offerings in atonement. 
 
 Phcebidas. What 
 
 Gifts will suffice ? 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 109 
 
 Amarillis. Three goats' milk bowls, and 
 
 three 
 Of honey with the comb. 
 
 Phcebidas. Ay ; that and double, 
 
 If 'twill appease him will I freely give. 
 
 Amarillis. O lose no time, but to his altar haste ; 
 And may he with propitious mercy view 
 Thine offerings ! 
 
 Phcebidas. I go ; but I shall live 
 
 Only in hope of quick return. Adieu ! 
 
 Amarillis. Believe me, Phcebidas, I shall not 
 taste 
 Joy till you come again. Farewell, farewell ! 
 
 [Phcebidas exit* 
 Into the darker cloisters of my cell 
 Will I retire. And, O ye pendent boughs 
 Of ilex, ivy, rosemary, and box, 
 With oleaster and wild vines entwined, 
 Shroud me from sight : so may no vagrant flocks 
 
110 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Your green festoons, with mouth uplifted, browse, 
 Nor woodman with his hatchet wound your rind. 
 
 [Retires into the Cave. 
 
 Amarynthus enters the Cave, and approaching the 
 Fountain, kneels before it. 
 Amarynthus. Ye stately nymphs that in this 
 fountain lave, 
 (What time the morn from yonder height 
 Stands tiptoe peeping with delight,) 
 And give your breasts to float upon the wave, 
 Like heaving lilies with a rose-bud tipp'd, 
 May nothing in your crystal bed be dipp'd, 
 To cloud the beaming of your milky limbs 
 When ye disport beneath ; nor herds nor flocks 
 Trample the flowers that glorify its rims, 
 With which ye wont to braid your dripping locks. 
 May nothing of the reptile tribe that swims, 
 Profanely tincture its pellucid deep, 
 
SCENE I.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. Ill 
 
 And when some thirsty pilgrim stops to sip, 
 May he, like me, approach with reverent lip, 
 Nor with rude clamour scare ye when ye sleep, 
 LulFd by the gugglings that around ye creep. 
 Hail, ye fair forms, and hallowed be your haunts ! 
 
 Amaril^is sings voithin. 
 Who dare invade with foot unwary,, 
 This our chosen sanctuary? 
 
 She enters dressed as a Nymph. 
 
 Presumptuous mortal ! knowest thou not 
 
 This is the nymphs' forbidden grot? 
 
 Wretch ! thou shalt be, for this intrusion, 
 
 Haunted and hunted to confusion. 
 
 [Amarynthus utters a loud cry, and 
 rushes out. 
 
112 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 CEnone is discovered sitting beneath a Tree, weav- 
 ing a Garland of Flowers and Ivy. 
 
 She sings. 
 Hot was the chace 
 Through the wilds of Thrace, 
 When Rhaecus riding the woods among, 
 Saw a beautiful oak that toppling hung, 
 For the earth had sunk 
 From the roots, and its trunk 
 To the shelving bank in an agony clung. 
 
 His horse he stopp'd, 
 
 And he upright propp'd 
 
 The tree, and replaced the earth with care, 
 
 When a young Hamadryad, as fresh as air, 
 
 Stepping out of the dark 
 
 And yawning'^bark, 
 
 Cried, " Ask a boon, and I'll grant your prayer." 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 113 
 
 As he gaz'd on her breast, 
 
 Still heaving distress'd, 
 
 He fondly exelaim'd, with love I burn, 
 
 O beautiful nymph grant yours in return ! 
 
 She blush'd at his boon, 
 
 But vow'd that soon, 
 
 The hour of his happy reward he should learn. 
 
 In his ear, while at dice, 
 
 A bee buzz'd thrice, 
 
 'Twas a page from his bride to whisper her will, 
 
 But he dash'd it aside, and attempted to kill. 
 
 When in anger and shame 
 
 She struck him lame, 
 
 And there he goes limping, limping still. 
 
 What a fierce thing is unrequited love ! 
 Alas ! poor Rhaecus, thou wilt not abuse 
 Again the herald of a nymph. Heigho ! 
 Yes ; the last garland that I ever wove 
 
 i 
 
1 14 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Was just like this, and O with what profuse 
 Clusters his locks above it and below 
 Fell when I placed it on his noble brow. 
 But, hush ! no more of that, 'tis impious now. 
 Seal'd be my lips. Yet after death, perhaps, 
 We may unchidden meet, no more to part. 
 If so, how gladly should I mark the lapse 
 Of health, waiting to let my heart 
 Break, like an egg y silently in its nest, 
 Then spread my wings, and flutter to his breast. 
 
 Amarynthus, rushes in mldly. 
 Amarynthus. O save me, save me ! hide me 
 from the anger 
 Of the pursuing nymphs : visions of sadness 
 Glare ghastly to mine eyes : clashing and clangour 
 Whiz in mine ears, and every thought is madness. 
 CEnone. I said thou shouldst be haunted by more 
 dire 
 And unrelenting spirits than OEnone. 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 115 
 
 Amarynthus. See, see! the furies with their 
 snaky hair 
 Rise from the earth and stretch their fingers bony, 
 Whose single touch would set my heart on fire. 
 This way they block my passage up, and there 
 The nymphs rush on like raving bacchanals. 
 O for some cloud like that which Jove outspread 
 Over this vale of Tempe, to conceal 
 Io ! I hear the nymphs' distracting calls. 
 O whither shall I fly, where hide my head, 
 Or quench the fire that in my brain I feel ? 
 
 [Runs out, 
 
 CEnone. Yes ; happiness upon the horizon hangs, 
 For ever flying back as we advance. 
 Poor Amarynthus ! thou hast realised 
 Thy hopes, — what are they? Nympholeptic pangs 
 And terror. How these leaves of ivy glance 
 In the sun. This garland might be prized 
 By Bacchus' self. O let me not profane 
 That name, but recollect the Chian crew. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 What, kidnap Bacchus ! impious and insane ! 
 Traitors ! your punishment was richly due. 
 
 She sings. 
 A beautiful boy in the Chian woods 
 Was reeling about, with wine o'ercome, 
 They took him on board, and swore by the Gods, 
 To sail for Naxos, and carry him home. 
 But the traitors bore 
 For another shore, 
 
 When, lo ! the vessel stands rooted fast, 
 Spite of the winds and buffeting blast. 
 
 O prodigy rare ! see, see, the boards 
 
 With quick spreading ivy bud and brighten ; 
 
 The oars are wreath'd like thy patriot swords, 
 
 Harmodius bold and Aristogiton. 
 
 It runs up the mast, 
 
 Round the ropes is cast, 
 
 And the sail that rustles with berries and leaves, 
 
 Like a waving wood in the ocean heaves. 
 
SCENE II.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 117 
 
 Amazement ! look, a car in the ship ! 
 
 Two rampant panthers spring from the floor ; 
 
 With a bright-eyed snarl each upcurls his lip, 
 
 And lifts his paw with a fearful roar : 
 
 Bacchus steps down 
 
 From the car with a frown, 
 
 And shaking the grapes from his locks and neck, 
 
 Plants his spear on the ringing deck. 
 
 How ran the rest? The perjured crew were 
 
 thrown 
 Into the sea, and took a dolphin's shape ; 
 A happier change than mine, whose mind alone 
 Is metamorphos'd. No man can escape 
 Who is ungrateful to the powers divine* 
 That duly bless the earth with corn and wine ! 
 
 She sings. 
 Glory to Ceres, the beautiful Chloe ! 
 Sing Io ! Bacche ! Evohe ! Evoe ! [ExiU 
 
 i 3 
 
118 AMARYNTHUS, [ ACT III. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Interior of a Forest. 
 
 Urania alone. 
 
 He will be here anon, for I 
 Amid the trees pursued his track, 
 Now crouching in the dingles nigh, 
 And now with deprecating cry, 
 Flying like a maniac. 
 
 she will love him at first sight, 
 For wild, bewilder'd as he flies, 
 His beauty flashes out more bright, 
 Like sun-beams shot from stormy skies. 
 This, this alone can set me free ; 
 
 And yet, kind-hearted Dryope, 
 
 1 would still serve thee, if I thought 
 My liberty with thine were bought. 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 119 
 
 But Amarynthus' love will be 
 A source of rapture so divine, 
 That to retain it thou'lt resign 
 Gladly thine immortality. 
 
 She sings. 
 In the Milky Way's fierce lustre, 
 Do my starry sisters cluster : 
 Quickly shall I cleave the air, 
 Their pastime and their flight to share, 
 'Neath the lids of morn to creep, 
 In our twilight bowers to sleep, fi 
 
 Till she opes her amber eye, 
 On a sun-beam then we fly, 
 Dancing up the jocund sky, 
 In delicious revelry. 
 
 As on air we float and swing, 
 Merry madrigals we sing, 
 
120 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Bind with amaranth our brows, 
 
 As on odours we carouse ; 
 
 Or in races start amain 
 
 To kiss some star and back again; 
 
 All the while our voices timing 
 
 To the sphere's harmonious chiming. 
 
 If on earth we deign to tread, 
 'Tis some precinct hallowed, 
 Charmed lake or haunted dell, 
 To hear the hymn of Philomel ; 
 And when summer's evening flashes 
 Ope the sky in flaming gashes, 
 Thither do we speed our flight, 
 Leap into the liquid light, 
 And bid the winking world good night. 
 
 Enter Dryope. 
 Dryope. O nightingale ! that to the unconscious 
 trees 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 121 
 
 So sweetly singest, 
 
 Thou shalt repay me with two melodies 
 
 For every one thou flingest 
 
 Away upon the woods when I am gone. 
 
 This tale of thine my mind is ever haunting ; 
 
 I mean of the abandoned Celadon, 
 
 When to himself you overheard him vaunting 
 
 His impious fraud in Pan's dread name committed ; 
 
 Nor can I rest until his guilt be known. 
 
 Strangers, so sacrificed, might well be pitied, 
 
 But unto Phcebidas I long have shown 
 
 Ingratitude, — at least forgetfulness. 
 
 I have a milk-white fawn, spotless and tame, 
 
 Which, frighten'd in a storm, o'erlept the fence 
 
 Of my bower, and sought the innermost recess 
 
 Of a thorny thicket. Phcebidas came 
 
 Thither by chance, carefully led it thence, 
 
 And by its collar of oak garlands guessing 
 
 It was a nymph's, tied it beneath our tree, 
 
 (Call'd, as I told thee, Dian's canopy,) 
 
122 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Supplied it food, and left it with a blessing. 
 
 Now for this gentle deed I do confess 
 
 Myself his debtor ; now will I be won 
 
 From all good offices, until I can 
 
 Crown him with fortune's gifts and love's success. 
 
 Did you not say, besides, that Celadon 
 
 Was a despiser of the nymphs, and Pan ? 
 
 Urania. One who derides all holy things, denies 
 
 Th' existence of the nymphs of earth or sky, 
 
 And at the terrors of th' invisible world 
 
 Laughs. 
 
 Dryope. Let us punish his impieties ; 
 Teach him that Pan's most aweful majesty 
 Shall not be flouted, and that mockery hurl'd 
 Against the gods leaps back with fierce recoil 
 Upon the scorner. Thou, Urania, must 
 Devise the mode, and bear this duteous toil. 
 Quick ! quick ! nor let me longer be unjust. 
 
scene iii.] the nympholept. 123 
 
 Urania. 
 'Ere the words have left thy tongue 
 Swift as a swallow feeds her young, 
 I fly to execute thy vow, 
 And back again, to tell thee how, [Exit. 
 
 Dryope. Is it some stag I hear, whose antler'd 
 brows 
 Have got entangled in these rustling boughs ? 
 O gracious Pan ! what apparition's this ? 
 
 [Amarynthus rushes in> and throws himself 
 at the feet o/Dryope. 
 Amarynthus. The nymphs ! the nymphs ! O 
 hide me from their fury. 
 They gain upon me. Hark ! the hissing air 
 Boils in mine ears ; earth heaves beneath my feet, 
 And tries to shake me off. Spare, I conjure ye, 
 O spare a madden' d wanderer. There, there ! 
 The sea forsakes its bed, and rolls its fleet 
 Waves to o'erwhelm me. Lo ! the rays of the sun 
 
124} AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Are angry flames ; with forky tongues out-thrust 
 
 To lap me. Hecate is coming : see, 
 
 With her hands she combs her snakes, and every one 
 
 Spits out its foam at me. Here in the dust, 
 
 Kneeling, O gentle shepherdess, to thee 
 
 I make appeal. If ever thou didst love, 
 
 Or the soft touches of compassion know, 
 
 If thou dost reverence the powers above, 
 
 And the dread nymphs their ministers below, 
 
 O pour thy pity on a haunted wretch, 
 
 Chaced by the furies, — horror-stricken, — stung 
 
 To madness. Show me some lair where I may 
 
 stretch 
 My fainting limbs, and lie in the dark conceal'd 
 From all things and myself. 
 
 Dryope. My heart is wrung 
 
 With mingled throbs of pity and delight. 
 Unhappy man, arise. Why hast thou kneel'd 
 To one more eager to bestow relief, 
 Than thou to ask ? Here shalt thou cease thy flight, 
 
SCENE III.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 125 
 
 For I will shield, and save thee : soothe thy grief, 
 
 And chace the fearful phantoms that possess 
 
 Thy brain. A labyrinth of green 
 
 In the near fastness of the forest hides 
 
 My bower, where thou shalt lie unseen, 
 
 With silence, solitude, and Dryope 
 
 To be thy nurses. 
 
 Amarynthus. All that Pan provides 
 For the blest, beautiful shepherdess, be thine, 
 
 Dryope. Come to thy sanctuary, come with me. 
 Thou tremblest still ; O lean upon mine arm. 
 
 Amarynthus* I hear them now, quick, quick ! 
 
 Dryope. Nay, nay, resign 
 
 Thy fears, for I will shelter thee from harm. 
 
 {Exeunt. 
 
126 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The Cave of Homole. 
 
 Chabrias, Theucarila, Phcebidas, Doris, 
 
 Shepherds, and Shepherdesses. 
 
 Chabrias. Maiden ! come forth, for we do bring 
 thee tidings 
 Welcome and wondrous ! 
 
 Phcebidas. Amarillis dear, 
 
 We are all friends, and bear thee joyful news. 
 Doris, Well I must own I do distrust these 
 hidings 
 In caves and grottoes. Ah ! 'tis many a year 
 Since I did thus. Surely she wont refuse 
 To come to us. Perhaps she cannot hear. 
 Why, child ! why, Amarillis ! 
 
 Theucarila. Rather let 
 
 Phcebidas enter and explain our visit. 
 
 [Phcebidas enters the Cave. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 127 
 
 Doris. If any can persuade her, it is he. 
 Yet I do wish that we had elsewhere met, 
 That I myself might tell her. Psha ! what is it 
 That makes the girl so slow ? 
 
 Phcebidas re-enters, leading Amarillis. 
 Phcebidas. Nay, do not be 
 
 Frightened, dear Amarillis ! look around, 
 And by these happy faces wilt thou see 
 That I have told thee truth. 
 
 Amarillis* I am overcome 
 
 With such contending thoughts, that they confound 
 My senses. 
 
 Doris. Well, then, I'll explain it all : 
 And sure, so marvellous 
 
 1st Shepherd. Doris, be dumb, 
 
 And let thy betters speak. 
 
 Doris. Well, if I must. 
 
 Chahrias. Damsel ! I need not to thy mind 
 recall 
 
128 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 How we exalted thee, putting our trust 
 
 In an imagin'd mandate of our God ; 
 
 But I am now commission'd to declare 
 
 A miracle most genuine and sublime. 
 
 Around Pan's open altar, on the sod 
 
 As we were kneeling, and with hymns and prayer 
 
 Sought to avert the punishment impending 
 
 For what we deem'd thy rash and impious crime ; 
 
 Lo ! on a sun-beam from the sky descending, 
 
 A winged angel on our altar lighted, 
 
 And with an aweful melody reveal'd 
 
 That what we had believ'd the voice of Pan 
 
 Was a vile fraud and forgery, indited 
 
 By that most sacrilegious Celadon. 
 
 To punish this profane and daring man, 
 
 All that he owns in Thessaly, each field, 
 
 And house, and herd, is confiscate and given 
 
 To the temple's use ; all but his farm upon 
 
 The banks of Cyphus, which well stored abode, 
 
 With all its flocks, and herds, and husbandry, 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 129 
 
 (For so the radiant messenger of Heaven 
 
 Decreed,) is lastingly on thee bestow'd, 
 
 Good Amarillis, for thy chastity 
 
 And sufferings unjust. Then, having whTd 
 
 That with new dignities Theucarila 
 
 Should be restor'd, the bright celestial said, 
 
 " Mortals, adieu ! my mission is fulfilled." 
 
 With that her glorious rainbow wings she spread, 
 
 And darting upward in the sunny ray, 
 
 The vision melted into light. 
 
 Amarillis {falling on her knees). O Pan ! I thank 
 
 thee for thy gifts bestowed 
 So lavishly upon a simple maiden ; 
 But chiefly that thou hast removed the load 
 Of saddening fear, with which my heart was laden, 
 That my rash flight would all thy smiles eclipse. 
 Doris. Ungrateful ! dost not thank him for the 
 
 farm? 
 Why, there are seven score sheep beside their 
 
 lambs, 
 
 K 
 
130 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Three score of oxen, and six Lybian rams, 
 
 Four ricks of hay 
 
 Amarillis. Dear mother, think no harm 
 
 That more thanksgivings flow not from my lips. 
 Pan sees all hearts, and knows that mine is thrilling 
 With happy gratitude, to him more dear 
 Than hymns or hecatombs. I am unwilling, 
 Before so many listeners, to betray 
 What doubles my delight ; and yet I fear 
 Ye have already guess'd it : I am sure 
 I could not long conceal it. Then, away, 
 Coy subterfuge ! With frank affection pure, 
 Dear Phoebidas, I tender thee my hand ; 
 And had I twenty farms of Cyphus, they would be 
 More worthless than as many grains of sand, 
 Unless I might bestow them all on thee. 
 
 Shepherds and Shepherdesses sing in Chorus. 
 Phcebidas and Amarillis ! 
 Phoebidas and Amarillis ! 
 
SCENE IV.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 131 
 
 By your marriage celebration, 
 Pan ordains you to fulfil his 
 High and holy declaration. 
 
 Phcebidas. O Amarillis, what have I to offer 
 For thy so generous love ? Naught but a poor 
 Lean heifer, and four cypress pails ; but these 
 With a most fond and faithful heart I proffer. 
 Amarillis. That is a wealth whose value will 
 endure 
 Tho' all the rest were melted in the seas. 
 Doris. Well, daughter, as I gave consent 
 before, 
 I cannot now refuse : 'tis a nice farm ; 
 And yet Pan's priestess had a grander sound. 
 Theucarila. Remember, Doris, if thy daughter 
 bore 
 This holy robe, it would possess no charm 
 To soothe her wretchedness, while I have found 
 k 2 
 
132 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Joy unprofaned in winning it again. 
 
 Be sure that Pan, whate'er he may ordain, 
 
 Is wise and gracious. 
 
 Chabrias. Wherefore let us all 
 
 Unto his temple turn, once more to fall 
 
 Before his altar, and with choral cries 
 
 Laud him for these benignant prodigies. 
 
 Then will we celebrate the nuptial rites, 
 
 With sportive cheer and festival delights. 
 
 Shepherds and Shepherdesses sing, 
 Phcebidas and Amarillis ! 
 Phcebidas and Amarillis ! 
 By your marriage celebration, 
 Pan ordains you to fulfil his 
 High and holy declaration. [Exeunt. 
 
SCENE V.] THE N YMPHOLEPT. 133 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 Dryopes Boxuer. 
 
 Amarynthus asleep — Urania. 
 
 Urania. How awful is the sleep of beauty ! I 
 Can scarcely gaze unmoved upon this youth, 
 And Dryope, when night enfolds the sky, 
 Will softly steal, (if there be any truth 
 In my heart-cheering hopes,) to kiss 
 His dozing eyes. O Liberty ! 
 Then shall I hail thee in the bliss 
 Of soaring from this alien narrowness, 
 Up to the social vastness of the sky. 
 
 Oft as I float above this earthly ball, 
 And catch the murmur of its myriad throngs, 
 Although to me no sympathy belongs 
 With fleeting man, a smiling tear will fall 
 To think upon the everlasting strife 
 Of passions that embroil his little life ; 
 k 3 
 
134 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Their schemes ephemeral, the sad and blythe 
 Hotly pursue, and as they smile or weep, 
 Up stalks the bony monster with the scythe, 
 And crops the breathing harvest at a sweep. 
 New generations rise to feed his blade, 
 And yet, poor insect, only thou dost fade. 
 The sun and moon look on with changeless eye, 
 Age doth not bleach the blueness of the sky ; 
 And tho' the winter'd earth wan cheeks may wear, 
 Spring re-appears, her wrinkled brow to smooth, 
 Garlands her locks, and o'er her shoulders bare 
 Throws the green mantle of eternal youth. 
 But why should I, unchangeable as these, 
 With shadowy man and his low destinies 
 Dull my clear thoughts? Away, away, 
 Thou thing of a day ! 
 
 My spirit is panting, and nothing is wanting 
 But darkness to snap all its fetters of clay. 
 When the nocturnal melodist shall pour 
 Her torrent of mellifluous ravishment, 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 1 35 
 
 Then shall this earth-imprisonment be o'er, 
 Then shall commence my limitless ascent. 
 Hush, hush ! the night is coming, 
 The cricket chirps, and the chafer's humming. 
 
 She sings. 
 Earth ! before thy larks shall twitter, 
 Or thy mountain-daisies glitter, 
 
 In the morning's dewy spangles ; 
 When thy bats no more are flitting, 
 And thy drowsy owls are sitting, 
 
 Blinking thro* the ivy's tangles. 
 
 When in all thy hush'd dominions 
 Thou shalt hear no sound of pinions, 
 
 Mine shall serenade the night, 
 From the sky the darkness brushing, 
 In their luminous up-rushing, 
 
 Like a meteor in its flight. 
 
 k 4 
 
1 36 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Then, thou misty mass, for ever 
 Eyes and thoughts shall I dissever, 
 
 From thy prison melancholic, 
 In my native starry bowers, 
 Wreath' d with rainbow light and flowers, 
 Once again to float and frolic. 
 Hush, hush ! the night is coming, 
 The cricket chirps, and the chafer's humming. 
 
 Dryope enters. 
 Dryope, Urania, thou warbling Syren, hush ! 
 For tho' thy voice be sweeter than the pipe 
 Of tuneful Hermes, or the liquid gush 
 Of Philomela from the myrtle-bush 
 That hangs o'er Sappho's tomb, behold ! the type 
 Of Love himself in lovely slumber lies ; 
 And as thou would'st be fearful of awaking 
 Cupid, refrain as timidly from breaking 
 The slumbers of this God in mortal guise. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 137 
 
 Urania. Mistress, I have done my mission. 
 Amarillis's ordeals 
 All are changed to joy surprising ; 
 Phcebidas's hymeneals 
 Even now are solemnising : 
 Rich beyond his hope's ambition 
 Is he made, and Celadon, 
 Reft of all his guilty wealth, 
 Wild'ring and dismay'd, by stealth 
 From Thessaly has fled and gone. 
 
 Dryope. Talk not to me of others' happiness, 
 When he, more charming than the beautiful 
 Antinous, Adonis, or Narcissus, 
 Hylas, or Hyacinth, or Cyparissus, 
 Or Phrygian Atys, lies in this distress, 
 Haunted with nympholeptic dreams, that dull 
 His bright conceit, and worry him to madness, 
 O hie thee quick for Amalthaea's horn, 
 And pour from it some moly or nepenthe 
 That may dispel this phantasy of sadness. 
 
138, AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Nay, fly at once, for I am all forlorn, 
 
 Till thy return ; and never have I sent thee 
 
 On a more vital need : away, awa)' ! 
 
 Urania. Sometimes we scalers of the sky upsoar 
 So near the sun, that from the flood of light 
 With wild intoxication we are fill'd, 
 Seeing sad visions and phantasmas strange; 
 Wherefore we bear about us in a shell 
 A syrup, whose least drop can put to flight 
 Phantoms and all chimeras. "lis distill'd 
 From flowers unknown to earth, which only dwell^ 
 Upon the dizzy mountains of the moon, 
 To whose vast height muse-haunted Helicon, 
 God-crown'd Olympus, and the invisible snows 
 Of topless Caucasus are pigmies. 
 
 Dry ope. One 
 
 Drop of this unguent is the only boon 
 I e'er shall ask of thee. O woe of woes ! 
 Thou canst not soar so high. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 139 
 
 Urania. Nor need I now. 
 
 Within a shell of Nautilus, enwreath'd 
 Amid the tresses of my hair, there lies 
 A drop unwasted still. 
 
 Dry ope. O thou has breath 'd 
 
 Into mine ear delicious music : how 
 Shall we apply it ? Let me loose thy hair. 
 
 Urania. It must be gently pour'd upon his eyes ? 
 The while its mystic virtues I declare 
 
 [Dryope anoints his eyes. 
 
 Urania. Sleeper, may this sovereign lotion, 
 Through the lids thine eyes that shroud, 
 Like a sunbeam through a cloud, 
 Pierce, and chace each misty notion, 
 Born of superstitious error, 
 And instinct with maddening terror. 
 Thou hast wish'd the veil up-ftuTd 
 Which the Omnipotent Unseen, 
 Hath suspended o'er the world, 
 An impenetrable screen, 
 
140 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Never to be raised, till he 
 
 Who hung it, shall from out the sky, 
 
 Thrust his hand, and testify 
 
 The wonders of eternity. 
 
 Wake, and with a humbler mind, 
 
 Bow thee to the lot assign'd : 
 
 Wake, no more a Nympholept, 
 
 But a gentle love-adept, 
 
 Only seeking to make bright 
 
 Future darkness by the light 
 
 Of present joy, and wisely deeming 
 
 That the purest we can know 
 
 Less proceeds from pleasure-scheming 
 
 Than from that which we bestow. 
 
 Dryope. Perform thy ministry, thou potent 
 charm, 
 Fondly, yet faithfully. 
 
 Urania. Let us begone, 
 
 For night has fallen, and no new alarm 
 Must scare his sleep. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 141 
 
 Dryope. Nay, I will do no harm. 
 
 Not speak, nor breathe, let me but gaze upon 
 His face. 
 
 Urania. Not now ; thou shalt return anon. 
 
 [She leads out Dryope. 
 
 Amarynthus (awaking). O ! I have had a fearful 
 dream, methought 
 From the sacred grove th' Eumenides were coming : 
 I saw the cymbals flash, and heard deep drumming; 
 When suddenly a winged angel brought 
 A shepherdess, who pour'd upon mine eyes 
 Drops, that dispell'd my loathsome phantasies, 
 And left me calm and happy. O what a sweet 
 Sensation flutters in my heart serene, 
 As if 'twere wing'd : dost thou still bid it beat, 
 Wild dream, or does this lovely night attune 
 Its pulses to the beauty of the scene ? 
 
 Through the sky's azure lake yon parted cloud 
 Swims on to bleach its feathers in the moon, 
 Like the swan-god, bridling to sleek his proud 
 And thrilling down on Leda's breast. 
 
142 AMARYNTHUS, [ A CT III. 
 
 And now the Titan clouds their masses prop 
 Into a mountain that may scale the skies ; 
 And, lo ! the moon, soon as it sleeps at rest, 
 Steals to the field of lilies on its top, 
 To bless her Latmian shepherd, while the wind 
 Blows the black ringlets from his dreaming eyes, 
 That she may kiss them softly. Ah ! how soon 
 All is dissolved, and scattered, unconfined, 
 For now the clouds, in tufts of fleecy hue, 
 Wander, like flocks of sheep, through fields of blue, 
 Cropping the stars for daisies, while the moon 
 Sits smiling on them as a shepherdess ; 
 Floating upon the wings of silence down, 
 A dew of light, in silver loveliness 
 Falls on the earth. The trees stand proudly still 
 To have their portraits shadow' d on the ground 
 By Dian's pencil, whose creative skill 
 Doubles the landscape, copying every trace 
 In light and shade, — all but her own fair face, 
 Which in the brook, as in the heavens, is found 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 143 
 
 Painted in light alone. Say, dost thou not, 
 Enamour' d Cynthia, with fond eyes explore 
 This sleep-embosom'd dell, like some fond mother 
 Who takes her lamp at midnight, and hangs o'er 
 Her lovely infant, slumbering in its cot ? 
 Peasant and king now equal one another ; 
 All hush'd and happy, share a common lot. 
 O who can contemplate this mingled scene 
 Of nature's charms and man's repose serene, 
 Nor feel his heart with human love embued 
 And heavenly gratitude ! 
 
 How sweet, how exquisite to tend my sheep 
 'Mid scenes like these, with such a shepherdess 
 As her whom late I saw. O gentle sleep ! 
 Scatter thy drowsiest poppies from above, 
 And in new dreams, not soon to vanish, bless 
 My senses with the sight of her I love. 
 
 [ Composes himself to sleep. — Dryope 
 enters, cautiously. 
 
144 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT JII. 
 
 Dry ope. Methought I heard a voice ; but all is 
 stilL 
 Sleep on thou mortal deity ! sleep on 
 Till the kind charm have tranquilliz'd thy soul ; 
 And, oh ! if love would aid its soothing skill, 
 By these soft kisses which I breathe upon 
 Thine eyes, do I acknowledge its controul. 
 
 Music is heard in the air, and Urania sings. 
 Liberty ! Liberty ! 
 The word is spoken, 
 The spell is broken, 
 Liberty ! Liberty ! 
 
 Star of my birth 
 My rights renew : 
 Dryope ! earth ! 
 Adieu ! Adieu ! 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 145 
 
 Amarynthus (avoaking). What strain is that, what 
 dulcet melody, 
 Fainter and fainter still, that from the air 
 Fours its deliciousness more tunefully 
 Than dying nightingales ? O thou most rare 
 And beautiful shepherdess, art thou a dream, 
 A vision, or indeed the guardian maid 
 That lately shelter'd me, and o'er my sleep 
 Hover'd? 
 
 Dryope. Be thou composed and calm, nor 
 deem 
 Unkindly of me if I am afraid 
 To tell thee what I am. 
 
 Amarynthus. Why dost thou weep, 
 
 And blush, and tremble thus ? 
 
 Dryope* To me that voice 
 
 Announced an awful change of fate : but now 
 I cannot tell thee all. Indeed, dear youth, 
 'Tis sweet, though strange, and I shall soon re- 
 joice. 
 
 L 
 
146 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 I care not for myself, if thou art calm. 
 See, my Pandoron hangs on yonder bough; 
 Take it, and with its gentle music soothe 
 Thy spirit. 
 
 Amarynthus. Fairest, it can yield no balm 
 Unless it soothe thine own. 
 
 Amarynthus sings, 
 Come, shepherdess, O come, 
 Amid the boughs and greenness live with me : 
 Birds shall sing and bees shall hum, 
 To welcome thee with nature's minstrelsy. 
 
 No peering ray shall glisten 
 
 Through the thick leaves upon the mossy greeii^ 
 
 Where thou shalt lie, 
 
 When the sun is high, 
 
 And to the wing'd musicians listen 
 
 That hop about unseen. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 147 
 
 While I beside thee laid, 
 
 Will carve thy name on the o'erhanging trees ; 
 
 Or lissom osiers braid 
 
 To make thee baskets for wild strawberries ; 
 
 Or fetch thee from the brook 
 
 Lilies, to make a garland for thy locks ; 
 
 Or carve a curious crook, 
 
 Or willow wattles twist to fold thy flocks. 
 
 When the red setting sun 
 
 Behind the burnish'd sycamores is seen, 
 
 Whose shadows long and dun 
 
 Streak with dark brown the grass's golden green, 
 
 We'll stand beside the bushes, 
 To listen to the thrushes, 
 As in the glowing leaves they tell their tale, 
 l 2 
 
148 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Or in the moonlight flushes 
 Catch the passionate gushes 
 Of the enamour'd thrilling nightingale. 
 
 By Phcebe's lamp on high, 
 
 And the glow-worm's twinkling nigh, 
 
 Home through the silver leafiness we'll stray, 
 
 And in our bower lie, 
 
 On beds of rushes, flowers, and new-mown hay. 
 
 And should the storm be loud, 
 
 We will but clasp the closer in our nest ; 
 
 For tempests cannot cloud 
 
 The calm that keeps a sunshine in the breast. 
 
 Come, shepherdess, O come ! 
 
 Amid the boughs and greenness live with me : 
 
 Birds shall sing, and bees shall hum, 
 
 To welcome thee with nature's minstrelsy. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 149 
 
 CEnone runs in. 
 CEnone. What new Endymion serenades the 
 moon ? 
 Ha! Amarynthus, did'st thou hear me call? 
 I have been seeking thee, for I must soon 
 Leave thee to join th' Olympic festival. 
 Our sails are hoisted with to-morrow's sun, 
 And I shall sing them, as the gulf we cross, 
 The ballad of the Argonauts. They say 
 Lysander's pilot wrote it on the day 
 Before the fight of Mgos Potamos. 
 
 She sings. 
 Never did a crew leave the shouting shore of 
 
 Greece, 
 Like the Argonauts who sail'd to bring home the 
 
 golden fleece. 
 First Hercules advanced, with Hylas in his hand, 
 Where Castor and Pollux stood ready on the 
 strand, 
 
 l 3 
 
150 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 And Orpheus with his harp, and Jason with his 
 
 sword, 
 Gave the signal to the heroes when they jump'd 
 
 on board. 
 
 When they reach'd the Pontic coast, overboard 
 
 they threw 
 The rope-fasten'd stone, and to Chiron's cave 
 
 they flew. 
 They feasted and they quafTd till the bowls and 
 
 horns were dry, 
 When the centaur challenged Orpheus their 
 
 minstrelsy to try. 
 He snatch'd the lyre himself, and such warlike 
 
 paeans play'd, 
 That each hero started up, and with fierceness 
 
 drew his blade. 
 
SCENE V.J THE NYMPHOLEPT. 151 
 
 But when Orpheus began, the trees from Pelion's 
 
 height 
 Slid downwards to the cave, and o'erhung it in 
 
 delight ; 
 Wolves and lions at its mouth stood silently 
 
 around, 
 Mix't with cattle, with their ears all pointing to 
 
 the sound ; 
 The centaur stamp'd his hoof 'mid ungovernable 
 
 cries, 
 And clapp'd his hands in extacy, and yielded up 
 
 the prize. 
 
 Arnartynthus. Thanks for thy ballad, tuneful 
 maid, but why 
 Wert thou seeking me ? 
 
 (Enone, How ran the prophecy ? 
 
 " From fancied visions he shall be 
 Relieved by their reality." 
 All is fulfill'd. 
 
 l 4 
 
152 AMARYNTHUS, . [ACT III. 
 
 Amarynthus* How, how, fair prophetess? 
 
 CEnone. She whom you deem'd a Naiad in the 
 cave 
 Of Homole, was Amarillis. She 
 Who chaced your visions was no shepherdess* 
 But Dry ope the wood-nymph, who with grave 
 And downcast looks sits by thee blushingly. 
 I could have stak'd my life on the prediction 
 Of the rustling oats : — but hark ye, youth, do not 
 In the moon s jealous eye your love declare : 
 Think on those arms, the cause of my affliction^ 
 That swam on light to the Castalian grot, 
 And smote the harp. Beware ! beware ! beware ! 
 
 [Exit* 
 
 Amarynthus. Tell me, fair wonder, who and 
 what thou art, 
 For I may scarce believe this crazy ranting ; 
 But, ah ! if thou would'st not replunge my heart 
 Into the madness which thy touch enchanting 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 153 
 
 Banish'd, O do not bid me disavow 
 That 1 adore and love thee. 
 
 Urania. Never, dear youth ? 
 
 Recall that word. (Enone told thee truth. 
 I was the wood-nymph, Dryope. 
 
 Amarynthus. And now 
 
 Art thou not still the same ? 
 
 Urania. I have been made 
 
 Mortal like thee. O be the change propitious ! 
 Amarynthus. What crime could thus degrade 
 
 thy destinies ? 
 Urania. By my deep blushes be the truth be- 
 tray'd, 
 Not by my tongue. Alas ! it was for love, 
 Love of a mortal. 
 
 Amarynthus. O surmise delicious ! 
 
 It was — it was : those eyes, those blushes, prove 
 It was for love of me. Here on my knees,, 
 By Pan and all the deities that keep 
 Court on Olympus, do I dedicate 
 
154 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Life to thy service, and when this fond heart 
 Shall cease to throb with love, O may it leap 
 Out of my breast, and burst. 
 
 Urania. Now is my fate 
 
 More noble than it was ; for love's dear art 
 Into a moment hath condensed the joy 
 Of ages ; and if thou hast truly sworn, 
 Our little life, with love, will far o'erpass 
 An immortality without, which doth but cloy 
 With sameness. Wilt thou in the forest's bourne 
 Live with thy Dryope ? I'll teach thee there 
 Our wood-craft ; show the weeds and ferny grass 
 That stags and roebucks browse; skill thee to 
 
 snare 
 Fawns, and impound the wild boar in the brake. 
 
 In autumn, when the leaping squirrels shake 
 Fir-cones upon the tinkling leaves below, 
 I'll lead thee to a rocky dell, and show 
 Golden carp and mottled trout, 
 That like meteors flash about. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 155 
 
 Where clear waters nimbly travel 
 
 Over the painted stones and gravel. 
 
 Sports that administer perpetually 
 
 To health shall yield succession of delights. 
 
 Within the forest is an open valley, 
 
 Whose sides are turreted with rocky heights, 
 
 Surmounted some with nodding trees, 
 
 Almonds, pines, and mulberries, 
 
 Magnolia, arbutus, pinaster, 
 
 Citron, palm, and oleaster ; 
 
 Others bare, and standing out, 
 
 Like altars, all festoon'd about, 
 
 With vines and ivy, while below 
 
 The streamlet stills its guggling flow, 
 
 In a small lake, whose face serene 
 
 Is painted with the circling scene. 
 
 There do I keep my fawn, who feels 
 
 My hand to find his daily meals ; 
 
 There is my lawn, with violets o'er-run, 
 
 Which leave the fragrance of their kiss impressed 
 
156 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Upon the south-wind's breath, 
 
 And buttercups that glitter to the sun, 
 
 Like infants' eyes when they behold the breast ; 
 
 And round it are the flowers immortahVd 
 
 By Hyacinthus' and Adonis' death ; 
 
 That with the yellow crown named from the queen 
 
 Who built the Mausoleum ; that baptiz'd 
 
 With Phrygian Teucer's name, and thousands more, 
 
 That from their painted chalice incense fling* 
 
 There may'st thou sit upon the shaded green, 
 
 And gaze on butterflies, extending o'er 
 
 Scarlet anemones their crimson wing, 
 
 Till they seem metamorphos'd as they lie, 
 
 A flying flower, and rooted butterfly. 
 
 Amaryn. Most lovely Dryope, even if thou hast 
 A garden of more redolence and bloom 
 Than that Hesperian paradise of yore, 
 I shall prefer the forest's wild and vast 
 Magnificence, the wind's sonorous roar, 
 The nymphs, the stags, the interminable gloom, 
 And the hairy satyrs. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 157 
 
 Dryope. O we have aweful shades ! 
 
 Dim lawns, unfathom'd by the sun, grown old 
 In a green twilight ; but in our darkest glades 
 Of woven wood, and bosky wilderness, 
 There is no gloom. Nature may there unfold 
 A reverend hoariness, solemn and wild, 
 Where, amid sinewy and furrow'd trees, 
 That ne'er have bent their knotty knees 
 Unto a thousand storms, with visage mild, 
 Old shaggy satyrs, stooping with excess 
 Of years, bow their grey heads to Pan. 
 But all is bland, not fearful. How delighted 
 Wilt thou be, Amarynthus, to survey 
 Our giant woods, coeval with the sky, 
 And yet by human eyes unseen. To stray 
 Through colonnades of Doric trunks whose high 
 O'er-arching boughs form temples dedicate 
 To Pan. How thrilling to thy soul to feel 
 His presence in the deep inviolate 
 Silence of that solitude, 
 
158 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 Within whose sanctuary rude 
 
 Nymph, Dryad, Hamadryad, come to kneel, 
 
 Upwardly looking their ineffable love ; 
 
 Then through the verdurous alleys of the grove 
 
 Homeward retire, with musing eye downcast, 
 
 In voiceless reverence. 
 
 Amarynthus. Hast thou e'er pierced the forest 
 
 through ? 
 Urania. So wide 
 
 It spreads, that I have not, though I have dived 
 
 Deep in its shady heart. 
 
 Amarynthus. What hast thou spied 
 
 In the remotest depths where thou hast lived ? 
 
 Urania. Older, and older, and still older trees, 
 Wrecks of past ages, stand like monuments, 
 Leading up, step by step, to the creation. 
 The breath of long forgotten centuries, 
 Pent in their trunks, finds in their hollow vents 
 A voice that murmurs of the world primeval, 
 And early gods. Unless imagination 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 159 
 
 Cheated mine ear, how often have I heard 
 Whispers like these : — " O if there were reprieval 
 " From time's assaults in glorious memories, 
 " These boughs would not be wither'd up and 
 
 " furr'd 
 " With cankering rust, for under their vast sweep 
 " Dian with all her nymphs was wont to follow 
 " The stag ; and from this very trunk Apollo 
 " Pluck'd moss to staunch the bleeding arteries 
 " Of Hyacinthus' forehead, cloven deep 
 " By his zephyr-guided quoit." From wrecks more 
 
 hoary, 
 Mere trunks, from which the weary storms have 
 
 wrench'd 
 All that would move, leaving them rocks of wood, 
 Dim recollections of their ancient glory. 
 Have in these moanings faintly breath'd — " Old, 
 
 " old! 
 " Limbless, snd sapless, and almost intrench'd 
 " Within the earth, yet towering once I stood. 
 
160 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 " Giant of the forest, and beneath my shade 
 
 " Did hoary-headed Saturn sit and fold 
 
 " His hands in lonely thought. Hyperion, 
 
 " Far off, and yet beneath my boughs, hath laid 
 
 " His giant symmetry to sleep ; and one 
 
 " Of the Titans, mightier still, Porphyrion, 
 
 " Tired of the chace, supported once his vast 
 
 " Huge-muscled back against my bending trunk. 
 
 " Sometimes I dream of elemental forms 
 
 " More ancient still, but dim, for they have past, 
 
 " Past all away, torn from me in the storms 
 
 " Of ages, that have left me bare, and shrunk 
 
 " Into a hollow nothing." 
 
 A favourite hound 
 We buried lately near a wreck like this, 
 And deep in earth a hunting spear we found, 
 Unliftable, the fragment of an age, 
 When giants chaced the mammoth. 
 
 Amarynthus. O the bliss 
 
 Of roaming in those forests, which the last 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 161- 
 
 Of the Gods and Titans made their glorious stage. 
 
 Within those precincts, dim and vast, 
 
 Our bridal rites shall be 
 
 Solemnis'd jocundly, 
 
 The pomp of nature gracing our espousal ; 
 
 Birds and winds shall pipe a real 
 
 Chorus hymeneal, 
 
 As the ripe fruitage falls for our carousaL 
 
 Our witnesses shall be earth, woods, and sky; 
 
 Our coronals the wild flowers wreathing 
 
 Around our leafy camp ; 
 
 Our bed the blossomed swath up-breathing 
 
 Incense, and Hesper's twinkling eye 
 
 Our nuptial lamp. 
 
 We will teach love-songs to the brooks 
 
 That lose themselves in dells and nooks, 
 
 That so our wooings may pervade 
 
 The deepest labyrinths of shade. 
 
 We will awaken Silence with our kisses 
 
 Till Echo blushes, 
 
 M 
 
162 AMARYNTHUS, [ACT III. 
 
 And Zephyrus shall prattle of our blisses 
 
 Unto the bowers and bushes. 
 
 O I will love thee, Dryope, so dearly, 
 
 That if thou couldst immortal life resume, 
 
 Still shouldst thou cling unto the narrow scope 
 
 Of man. 
 
 Urania. Hush, hush ! I swear to thee sincerely, 
 That I am proud to share his glorious doom. 
 Hath he not present love, and future hope ? 
 What ! is it nothing that he sits enthroned 
 In this so beautiful world, with its blue skies 
 Lighted so gorgeously ; its earth arrayed 
 In Flora's festal broidery, and zoned 
 With dancing seas ? Nothing, that perfumes rise 
 From flowery fields, while madrigals are play'd 
 By lyric beaks, to cheer him as he shakes 
 His banquet from the bough ? O joy above 
 All joys, to feel that the benignant Pan, 
 Who still renews these blessings, ne'er forsakes 
 The world he made, nor lessens in his love. 
 
SCENE V.] THE NYMPHOLEPT. 163 
 
 Dear Amarynthus, tell me not that man 
 Owns a low destiny. Let us but strive 
 To love our fellow-men as Heaven loves us, 
 (Which is true piety,) and earth will seem 
 Itself a heaven. 
 
 Amarynthus. O may we ever live 
 
 In this sweet creed, and Pan propitious, 
 Lengthen our loves, and realise thy dream ! 
 
 M '2 
 
NOTES 
 
 TO 
 
 AMARYNTHUS, THE NYMPHOLEPT. 
 
 M 3 
 
NOTES 
 
 TO 
 
 AMARYNTHUS, THE NYMPHOLEPT. 
 
 Page 16. 
 Or that red flower, whose lips ejaculate 
 Woe. 
 
 Every body is familiar with the beautiful fiction of the 
 death of Hyacinthus, and Apollo's conversion of his blood 
 into a flower, on whose petals he inscribed the exclamation 
 of his grief — " Ai ! Ai !" But authors are by no means 
 agreed as to the identity of the modern with the ancient 
 Hyacinth. Ovid describes it as a lily-shaped flower of a 
 purple or sanguine colour; and in the 13th book of his 
 Metamorphoses mentions another of the same sort which 
 sprang from the blood of Ajax, with similar letters, ex- 
 pressing, in this instance, not the grief of Apollo, but the 
 name of Ajax. This conceit is appropriate enough in 
 Ovid, but it was surely unworthy of Sophocles in his Ajax 
 to descend to a pun, and make his hero exclaim, " Ai ! 
 m 4 
 
168 NOTES TO 
 
 Ai ! what a fatal conformity is there between the name 
 which I bear, and the misfortunes I endure !" Dioscorides 
 thinks that the Hyacinth is the Vaccinium, our Gladiolus, or 
 Corn-flag, on whose purple flower the letters may sometimes 
 be imperfectly traced ; a suggestion supported by Salmasius, 
 on the ground that Virgil, in the line of his tenth eclogue, 
 " Et nigrcB violce sunt, et Vaccinia nigra" is obviously 
 translating a line in the 10th Idyll of Theocritus, Kal rb 
 toy jxeKav tvri Kai d ypairra vaKiu&(&>, He infers that it must 
 be the Iris or Gladiolus, for the following additional rea- 
 sons : — l.From the phrase of Columella, " Ccelestis nomi- 
 nis Hyacinthus" which is only applicable to the Iris. 
 2. From the assertion of Palladius " Hyacinthus, qui Iris, 
 vel Gladiolus dicitur" 3. From the diverging lines upon the 
 leaf, which, rudely describing the letters A and I, confirm 
 the " Ai, ai, flos kabet inscription" of Ovid. 4. From its 
 lily-shape and size, which justify the " formamque cepit 
 quam lilia, si non purpureus color his, argenteus esset in 
 Mis," Ovid, Met. x. In conclusion he observes, that the 
 colours, purpureus, ferrugineus, niger, and rubens, attributed 
 by the poets to the Hyacinth, are all applicable to the 
 Gladiolus. Professor Martyn, however, in his notes upon 
 Virgil, maintains that the species of red lily, called the 
 Martagon, or Turk's cap, is the genuine Hyacinth, both 
 from its blood-colour, and from the configuration of the 
 black specks upon it, which, with a little help from ima- 
 gination, will often assume the form of the letters ai. 
 
AMARYNTHUS. 169 
 
 This appears to be the most plausible conjecture. Moschus, 
 in his Idyllium, on the death of Bion, calls upon the flower 
 to exhibit its mournful inscription in larger characters ; 
 other poets have happily availed themselves of the fiction, 
 and the reader will immediately recollect Milton's allusion 
 to it in his Lycidas. It is by no means impossible that in- 
 stead of the flower being derived from Hyacinthus, the 
 whole story of his death was suggested to the vivid imagin- 
 ation of some ancient Greek while gazing upon the flower,' 
 as an explanation of the fancied writing upon its petals. 
 The tale of Io's transformation into a cow, and of her 
 revealing the misfortune by writing her name upon the 
 sand with her foot, originated, probably, in like manner, 
 from the print of a cow's hoof bearing some resemblance 
 to the letters which form the name. See the Scholiast 
 on Virgil. 
 
 Page 26. 
 Such as y in mystic days of yore, 
 To sage Melampus* ear they bore. 
 Melampus, a great physician and prophet, cured the 
 mad daughters of King Praetus, by giving them black hel- 
 lebore, thence called Melampodion ; and to show his con- 
 viction of the efficacy of his prescription, married one of 
 them himself. His servants, according to Apollodorus, 
 having found a nes^of snakes in an old oak, killed the 
 father and mother, and brought the young ones to Melam- 
 pus, who nourished and preserved them with great care. 
 
170 NOTES TO 
 
 One day having fallen asleep, these animals attached them- 
 selves to each of his ears, which they licked with such 
 effect, that upon his awaking he understood the language 
 of birds and beasts, with many other things, of which he 
 had not previously formed the smallest conception. Apol- 
 onius Tyaneus, the Pythagorean philosopher, in traversing 
 Mesopotamia, is said to have acquired a similar knowledge 
 from the Arabs, by the simple expedient of eating the 
 liver or heart of a dragon, upon which Eusebius sagely 
 remarks, that he must in that instance have violated his 
 rule of Pythagorean abstinence. 
 
 Page 37. ■ 
 Within myself a vestal spirit dwells, fyc. 
 This is merely an amplification of the beautiful passage 
 in the first scene of Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, which 
 Milton has also imitated in the first scene of his Comus. 
 
 Page 43. 
 
 Dost thou use Thapsus ? 
 
 Thapsus, according to Heinsius, is a Scythian wood of 
 
 a boxen colour, supposed by some to be the Indian Guai- 
 
 acum, with which the women who wished to look pale 
 
 formerly tinged their cheeks. 
 
 k 
 
 Page 58. ~ 
 Catches the sylvan god's ecstatic pipe. 
 This was no unusual belief among the ancients. Pan vva? 
 
AMARYOTHUS. 171 
 
 thought to be particularly partial to the mountains in the 
 neighbourhood of the Boeotian Thebes, where he was ac- 
 customed to sing and dance in cadence to the music of his 
 reed. Pindar, who had a particular devotion for the 
 Deity, and composed the hymns which the Theban virgins 
 sang at his festival, took up his abode near the temple of 
 Rhea and Pan, and was once fortunate enough to hear 
 him singing one of the very hymns which he had written. 
 If we enter for a moment into his religious as well as 
 poetical feelings, we shall not wonder that he is stated to 
 have become intoxicated with joy. 
 
 Page 96. 
 
 To watch the weeping Hyades. 
 
 The nurses of Bacchus, changed into three, five, or 
 
 seven stars, according to various authorities, bore this 
 
 name; and their appearance was generally supposed to 
 
 indicate rain; whence the verse of Virgil: — 
 
 Arcturum, pluviasque Hyadas, geminosque triones. 
 
 Page 108. 
 
 Didst thou not spy 
 
 Pan's symbol branded on its side ? 
 This precaution was observed with all the herds destined 
 for sacrifice; and Plutarch particularly records that the 
 heifers sacred to the Persian Diana were stamped with the 
 figure of a torch. 
 
172 NOTES TO AMARYNTHUS. 
 
 Page 109. 
 — — And, O ye pendent boughs 
 Of ilex, ivy, rosemary, and box. 
 Theseus, pursuing Perigune to a place overgrown with 
 shrubs, rushes, and wild asparagus, she, in her childish 
 simplicity, addressed her prayers and vows to those plants 
 and bushes, promising that if they would hide her she 
 would never burn or destroy them. — Plutarch. 
 
 Page 112. 
 When Rhcecus riding the woods among. 
 This story is to be found in the scholiast on Apollonius 
 Rhodius, who derives it from Charon of Lampsacus. 
 Another, nearly similar, but with a happier conclusion, is 
 told by Natalis Comes, who does not cite its author, but 
 makes Areas, the son of Jupiter and Calisto, its hero. 
 Mr. Hunt has introduced the former tale, with his usual 
 happy effect, into his delightful little weekly paper, The 
 Indicator. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 A TALE. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 I. 
 
 W here Debex's silver streamlet flows along, 
 Through Suffolk's rural shades, unknown to song, 
 Dwelt Lucy Milford. Deben, not to thee 
 I paint her beauties and her misery. 
 For thou hast often in thy glassy rill 
 Her form reflected, and when all is still. 
 At even-fall the gathered village-maids, 
 Pacing thy banks, or seated in the shades. 
 With solemn earnestness her tale disclose. 
 And make thy waters murmur with her woes. 
 
 To happy sires, with duteous daughters bless'd. 
 Like her caressing, and like her caress'd, 
 
176 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 I sing, and warn them by her cruel fate, 
 
 To shun the faults and sorrows I relate. 
 
 Rich was her father, for his farm supplied 
 
 Enough to gratify paternal pride ; 
 
 And such a venial pride, ah ! who could smother, 
 
 That own'd so sweet a child, and had no other 
 
 To soothe his sorrows for her buried mother ? 
 
 II. 
 
 With riper years her beauties riper grew, 
 Hers were the eyes of soft and beaming blue, 
 The forehead high, between the parted hair, 
 Which proudly told that intellect was there ; 
 The flushing cheek, the fair and sanguine skin, 
 The auburn ringlets, and the dimpled chin ; 
 And, if some scatter'd freckles here and there 
 Betray'd the kisses of the summer air, 
 Like the dark spots upon the God of light, 
 They made surrounding beauties shine more bright. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 177 
 
 Nor was the soul unworthy of the form ; 
 The simple heart, susceptible and warm, 
 The artless feelings with the native sense, 
 At once her best attraction and defence ; 
 The filial love, and the religious rite 
 That lost the sense of duty in delight ; 
 Such were the charms that graced this gifted crea- 
 ture 
 With kindred loveliness of mind and feature. 
 
 III. 
 
 Her doating father, eager to behold 
 Art's magic burnish on the native gold, 
 And yet too fond to let his treasure roam, 
 To win in schools what might be taught at home ; 
 Careless of cost where Lucy was in view, 
 Expensive teachers from a distance drew ; 
 More prone, perhaps, because himself untaught, 
 To prize the wonders by tuition wrought. 
 
 N 
 
178 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Envy the simplest bosoms will devour, 
 As cankers lurk within the fairest flower, 
 And who can wonder that the maidens nigh 
 Gaz'd upon Lucy with a jealous eye ? 
 If with their own they ventured to compare 
 Her worth, her beauty, her endowments rare, 
 Forced to admire, yet eager to traduce, 
 They own'd her talents, but denied their use. 
 Chiding the father, that the jealous spleen, 
 By her engender'd, might escape unseen ; 
 They wish'd, or said they wish'd, the girl might 
 
 thrive, 
 But as to him, " the fondest fool alive !" 
 So strangers felt ; but, ah ! how soon to change, 
 When to her character no longer strange ; 
 So sweet her manners on a nearer view, 
 So all accomplished, and so humble too, 
 So seemingly unconscious of the charms 
 That fill'd surrounding bosoms with alarms ; 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 179 
 
 To minds less fraught so willing to defer, 
 And reconcile them to themselves and her, 
 That they who came with envious doubts excited, 
 Abjured them all, and went away delighted. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Her filial offices, her stated prayers, 
 Books, flowers, and music, and domestic cares, 
 Gladden'd the day. Thus, undisturb'd, and smooth, 
 Flow'd the calm current of her early youth ; 
 And smiling thus, her eighteenth year drew nigh, 
 Ere grave distress, or scarce a passing sigh 
 Had heav'd her bosom. She had heard the name 
 Of Love, but was a stranger to his flame, 
 And often fancied that her books must err, 
 And give the God too dark a character. 
 Unceasing, there, she saw his arrows fall, 
 Destroying some, and agitating all : 
 She look'd around — examin'd her own breast, 
 Love was a fable, and his power a jest! 
 n 2 
 
180 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Secluded as she liv'd and wish'd to die, 
 She could not quite escape the curious eye ; 
 Some rustic rumours would her fame extend, 
 Varied, as borne by stranger or by friend, 
 The " learned lady !" some would taunt and rally, 
 While some extolled " the Belle of Woodbridge 
 Valley P 
 
 V. 
 
 In Yarmouth's town, a merchant's only boy, 
 Charles Seaton, lived, to give and gather joy ; 
 Enthusiastic, warm, aspiring, wild, 
 Perfection's votary, while yet a child ; 
 Whate'er was virtuous, romantic, new, 
 Engross'd his fancy, and his homage drew. 
 In books delighting, and with genius fraught, 
 He loved to mingle melody with thought ; 
 And as in youth his rhyming sins began, 
 The boy's propensity possess'd the man. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 181 
 
 To vie with gifted minstrels, to combine 
 The manly sense with harmony divine ; 
 To strike the harp, and with a magic skill, 
 Enchant, instruct, or terrify at will, 
 His powers forbade ; but not a few, who lift 
 Their voice in song without the sacred gift, 
 Would find their muse unable, or unwilling, 
 To pour a strain so simple, yet so thrilling. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Such was the youth who all impatient hied 
 Athwart the plain, the Deben for his guide ; 
 Nor stop'd till he had gain'd the leafy fence 
 Of Milford's farm ; here first his fears commence. 
 Would she not fancy that he came to share 
 The rude amazement and the vulgar stare ? 
 Without offence what plea could he aver, 
 How please himself without distressing her ? 
 Better unknown, than known to have encroach'd, 
 He might be foil'd, but would not be reproached. 
 n 3 
 
182 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Some other day, some other mode, he cried, 
 'Tis vain to stay, but still he staid, and sigh'd ; 
 Could I but steal a glimpse before I went, 
 Or catch one accent, I should go content. 
 
 An open casement won, but mock'd his view, 
 So thick the clust'ring honeysuckles grew. 
 He paused, and turn'd his backward way to win, 
 When, lo ! the sound of music from within ! 
 Swift o'er the chords her playful fingers flinging, 
 Some new Cecilia seem'd divinely singing. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Charles, listening, stood in almost breathless 
 
 trance, 
 Loth to recede, yet fearful of advance ; 
 He paused, but all was still ! — Is this, he cried, 
 Enchanted ground, where fairy sprites preside ? 
 Do magic minstrels in the air afloat, 
 To harps of gold attune the liquid note ? 
 

 LUCY MILFORD. 183 
 
 Ah, no ! in silent extasy they hail 
 The voice of Lucy, Syren of the Vale. 
 
 'Tis she who thus and here he stopp'd to view 
 
 An arm extended of transparent hue, 
 
 But soon the tantalising hope was o'er, 
 
 It closed the casement, and he saw no more. 
 
 Of forms regardless, quickly now he press'd 
 
 Across the garden, an unbidden guest, 
 
 But from the wicket was again retreating, 
 
 When Lucy's sire advanced with friendly greeting. 
 
 VIII. 
 'Twas now the sense of his intrusion rush'd 
 Athwart his mind ; he hesitated, blush'd, 
 Then, with ingenuous warmth, his story told, 
 How urged to come, why longing to behold. 
 Milford, who knew, although by fame alone, 
 The father's worth, the virtues of the son, 
 Proved, by the flushing cheek and trembling tear, 
 The joy he felt his daughter's praise to hear. 
 
 N 4< 
 
3 84 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Yes, you shall see her, he exclaim'd and smil'd; 
 Yes, you shall see this over-rated child ; 
 But recollect, the mind, unlike the eye, 
 Sees distant objects larger than when nigh ; 
 And be prepared, upon a nearer gaze, 
 Her claims to question, and curtail her praise. 
 She's a good daughter, that must be confessed. 
 Good ! did I say ? God bless her, she's the best ! 
 
 This said, he took his hand, and Charles was shown 
 To Lucy's parlour, justly call' d her own ; 
 The landscaped walls disclosed her pencil's powers, 
 Hers were the books, the instruments, the flowers : 
 The honeysuckles which with circling flush 
 Around the casement seemed to peep and blush, 
 By her were rear'd : on every side were traces 
 Of high endowments, and unrivall'd graces. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Not long could cold formality divide 
 Congenial souls, by nature's self allied ; 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 185 
 
 For theirs with kindred properties were graced ; 
 Alike their studies, their pursuits, their taste. 
 Together from their favourite books they drew 
 Their old delights, by sympathy made new, 
 And often tasted with its purest zest 
 That mental luxury, of all the best, 
 When, as the fields were sunny, and the breeze 
 Upspringing fresh, made music in the trees, 
 To some lone nook amid the shades they stole, 
 To read a poet with a poet's soul. 
 
 But most they loved thee, mighty son of song ! 
 Thee, great enchanter of the tuneful throng, 
 Exhaustless Shakspeare ! He, where'er they stray'd, 
 Their mentor and their minstrel too was made. 
 While thus each day they view'd with bosoms warm, 
 Some new acquirement or increasing charm, 
 While thus with Shakspeare through the meadows 
 
 roving, 
 Ah ! how could hearts like theirs refrain from 
 
 loving ? 
 
186 LUCY M1LF0RD. 
 
 X. 
 
 Close to the farm an ancient orchard spread, 
 In part surrounded by the Deben's bed ; 
 A weeping willow, hanging o'er the side, 
 Dipp'd its incumbent tresses in the tide, 
 Like some woe-stricken and dishevell'd fair 
 That bends, and weeps, and meditates despair. 
 Beneath its arching boughs a rustic seat 
 The lovers found, their favourite retreat. 
 
 Here Charles was reading by the twilight's aid 
 Of Romeo's passion, and the love-sick maid, 
 Until the gathering shades of night opposed 
 His further progress, and the book he clos'd. 
 In pleasing converse still they sate, nor knew 
 Of night's approach, so fast the moments flew, 
 Till at their feet the moon's divided beam 
 Stole through the silver'd leaves upon the stream, 
 Chequer'd and still, save where the willow dips, 
 And breaks the lustre with its floating tips. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 187 
 
 Calm was the night, and all was still'd at last, 
 Except the waters guggling as they past, 
 Which, by degrees, with fainter murmurs creep, 
 And seem, at length, to hush themselves asleep. 
 
 XL 
 
 The night, the orchard, and the radiance shed, 
 RecalFd the kindred scene he just had read, 
 Where Romeo, stealing in the silent hour, 
 Pour'd vows of love beneath his Juliet's bower. 
 As fond as Romeo, though with love untold, 
 He turn'd a fairer Juliet to behold, 
 And as her yielding hand he clasp'd, and press'd, 
 With sudden transport, to his throbbing breast, 
 " Lady," he cried, with an empassion'd air, 
 " Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, 
 " That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops — " 
 When Lucy, with a smile, his progress stops : 
 " O swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon, 
 " So prone to change, lest thou should'st change 
 as soon." — 
 
188 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 " Then by this trembling hand I swear, by this 
 " On which I seal the contract with a kiss, 
 " My heart, my hopes for ever to resign, 
 " Lucy, to thee, for I am only thine.' ' 
 Thus with a fond embrace the youth, delighted, 
 Confess'd his flame, and love eternal plighted. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Milford with fond solicitude caress'd 
 The happy couple, and their passion bless'd ; 
 And Charles, at once, to love and duty true, 
 To gain his father's sanction, homeward flew. 
 Scarce had he left the farm his sire to meet, 
 When with unnerving access, fierce and fleet, 
 Through Milford's frame a subtle fever sped, 
 And chain'd its burning victim to his bed. 
 Just in the trembling balance of his fate, 
 A roving missionary reach'd the gate, 
 And claimed admittance. The itinerant saint 
 Had heard of Lucy's love, the sire's complaint, 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 189 
 
 And ever prowling on the watch to find 
 A shatter'd frame, and spirit undermined, 
 Thought he might here his convert-arts essay, 
 Strong in the weakness of a prostrate prey. 
 
 Milford, unus'd to sickness, unprepared 
 For death's approach, subdued, bewilder'd, scared, 
 Prone to believe, untutor'd to reply, 
 Of life despairing, yet afraid to die, 
 With horror heard the woe-denouncing stranger, 
 Ready for any faith that led from danger. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Nature prevails ; his fever takes its flight, 
 And, lo ! a miracle as clear as light ! 
 His task was done. The missionary knew 
 His unenlighten'd convert would be true. 
 Writhe as he would, he could not 'scape the dart 
 For ever fix'd to wrankle in his heart. 
 Mistaken zealot ! thou hast made his life 
 Convert, indeed, — to bitterness and strife. 
 
190 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Lucy with anguish saw her alter'd sire 
 With dark chimeras haunted, girt with fire ; 
 And, like the scorpion, in his burning ring, 
 Writhing beneath a self-inflicted sting. 
 She saw that in the temple of his mind 
 God was dethroned, a hideous fiend enshrined, 
 And, melting into tears at his unkindness, 
 Withdrew to pray that Heaven might cure his 
 blindness. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 But, oh ! what deadly chill her soul appall'd 
 When with a frown his promise he recall'd, 
 Denounc'd her love, and warn'd her to reverse 
 All past engagements, or expect his curse ! 
 Aghast she stood : anon in suppliance bent, 
 With broken sobs implored him to relent ; 
 But vain her arguments, her prayers, her tears, 
 The bigot's hardness stops the father's ears. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 191 
 
 Was he not bound his daughter to controul, 
 And even by compulsion save her soul ? 
 Sick, he had made a contract with the Lord, 
 Could he, in health, retract his plighted word ? 
 He lov'd his child too well to wave her bliss 
 In future worlds for fleeting joys in this. 
 Wives were their husbands' echoes, ever moved 
 To take the tenets of the man they loved, 
 Lucy must therefore keep her single state, 
 Or choose for guide an evangelic mate. 
 Charles ridiculed the saints. What, wed a scoffer ! 
 He'd rather see her die than take his offer. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Such was the scene to which her lover rush'd 
 After compeird delays. What anger flush' d 
 His burning cheek, what anguish rack'd his breast, 
 When the sad tale by Lucy was confess' d ! 
 Instant he sought her father ; — fearless, warm, 
 His solemn promise urged him to perform : 
 
192 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Bade him resume his reason, and despise 
 The base impostor and his juggling lies : 
 Lash'd him with ridicule's unsparing rod, 
 And from his libels vindicated God. 
 
 But Milford's zeal with opposition rose, 
 As lime, assail'd by water, fiercer glows. 
 Away with ceremony, pledges, ties, 
 No dealings with religion's enemies ! 
 Begone ! he cried : what promise, or permission, 
 Can bind a Christian to his child's perdition ? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The sire of Charles too intimately knew 
 
 Th' intolerant zeal of that misguided crew, 
 
 Not to anticipate domestic jars, 
 
 Feuds in his family, and fire-side wars. 
 
 Time, he exclaim'd, may Milford's doubts remove : 
 
 If not, let absence wean this luckless love. 
 
 Prompt to perform whate'er his thoughts suggest, 
 His son he quickly reach'd, and thus address'd . 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 193 
 
 Charles, I have need of your immediate aid, 
 The charge is weighty, must not be delay'd ; 
 Our own new ship, the Seaton, richly stow'd, 
 For Sweden bound, is riding in the road, 
 An owner's presence his success secures, 
 Too old for toil myself, the task be yours ; 
 'Tis a short trip ; season and wind befriend you ; 
 On board then, quickly, and success attend you. 
 His heart was wrung, but struggling with his tears, 
 Charles sooth'd his Lucys sorrows, calm'd her 
 
 fears ; 
 Swore, when return'd, to claim her as his bride, 
 Were Milford's sanction granted or denied ; 
 Urged his unchanging love, the short delay, 
 Kiss'd her cold lips, and tore himself away. 
 
 O with what faithful sympathy of mind, 
 She mark'd the smallest veerings of the wind; 
 Thrill'd with delight at each propitious gale, 
 While adverse breezes fann'd her. chill and pale. 
 
194* LUCY MJLFGRD, 
 
 O how she trembled in her bed of fears, 
 When the loud elements assail'd her ears ; 
 Or if she dozed, what dreams beset her pillow, 
 Of storms, and wrecks, and corpses on the billow ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 At length a letter came ! O sight of bliss ! 
 How her heart flutter'd, as she press'd a kiss 
 On Charles's seal ! Good tidings it convey'd, 
 A happy outward course, successful trade ; 
 In a few days his task he should complete, 
 And speed for England, with the homeward fleet ; 
 A few days more would waft him to the land, 
 And crown his wishes, with his Lucy's hand. 
 
 In a small mansion on the Norfolk shore 
 That fac'd the sea, tho' distant from its roar, 
 An aunt resided ; every year she c#me, 
 Her favorite Lucy as a guest to claim ; 
 She claim'd her now, and as the father knew 
 That all her store would to his child accrue. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 195 
 
 He gave a slow consent to the excursion, 
 Loth to delay his plans for her conversion. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Unvex'd and free, her spirits here resume 
 A soft tranquillity, her cheeks their bloom. 
 Her trembling heart whene'er she wander'd forth, 
 True as the needle, pointed to the North ; 
 And oft she eyed the distant wave, to meet 
 Some gleaming sail, precursor of the fleet. 
 At length, refulgent, in the dawning light, 
 Burst the broad convoy on her sparkling sight. 
 The midnight storm was silenced, and the day 
 Broke clear and cloudless in serene array ; 
 Altho' the waves, still agitated, roll'd 
 In massy sweeps of undulating gold. 
 Aloft, in wheeling flights, the sea-gulls play, 
 Or skim the ocean : from the neighbouring bay, 
 The fishers' boats, a gay, tho' motley throng, 
 The scene enliven as they sweep along : 
 o 2 
 
196 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Up from the flood, with tumbling transport, flingg 
 The dusky porpus, splashing as he springs : 
 While here and there, the tenants of the deep, 
 Like meteors flash, as in the sun they leap ; 
 The waves themselves seem glad, and sporting, 
 
 bright, 
 Roll to the shore with murmurs of delight. 
 'Neath the white cliffs, as far as eye can roam, 
 The yellow sands are fringed with silver foam ; 
 Of the past tempest every trace is lost, 
 Save the torn weeds upon the shingles tost, 
 And the deep furrows, where the breakers dashing, 
 Had plough'd the shore up in their angry lashing. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 While tears of joy her flushing cheek bedew'd, 
 The fleet, the fleet alone her eye pursued ; 
 Some, from the others parting, stretch'd in shore, 
 As if for Yarmouth bound ; she conn'd them o'er, 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 197 
 
 And as she strove to fix the happy one 
 That bore her Seaton — hark ! a distant gun ! 
 Around she rolFd her eyes with timid start. 
 Another gun ! it smote upon her heart ; 
 For well its fatal import she could guess : 
 It flash'd at once, a signal of distress ! 
 O God, she falter'd with convulsive lip, 
 O gracious God, it may be Seaton's ship ! 
 Quick to the beach successive parties rush, 
 Some jump tumultuous in their boats, and push 
 Promptly to sea ; some speed along the shore, 
 Or on the distant rocks through glasses pore : 
 " Out with the life-boat !" is the cry — she leaps 
 Over the foaming surge and seaward sweeps. 
 All to one point with eager haste converge, 
 All to the distant rock their progress urge. 
 Thither her fearful glances Lucy turn'd, 
 And all aghast, the fatal spot discern'd, 
 Where the dark wreck amid the foam and spray, 
 Heav'd on its side a mastless fragment lay. 
 o 5 
 
198 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Blind to all else, her looks with stedfast strain 
 Pursue the life-boat ; on it speeds amain ; 
 Now nears the rocks, now dwindled to a speck, 
 Shoots through the foam, and gains the prostrate , 
 
 wreck. 
 A shout of joy that from the gazers broke, 
 Feeling and hope in Lucy's breast awoke ; 
 Forth from her heart the refluent currents rush ; 
 Fast from her eyes the tears of transport gush ; 
 And while she struggles with hysteric throbs, 
 " He's saved, he's saved !" she indistinctly sobs. 
 
 XX. 
 
 An awful pause succeeds ; the life-boat leaves 
 The shattter'd fragment, through the surges cleaves, 
 And, homeward steering, Lucy's piercing glance 
 Peruses every form as they advance ; 
 Their numbers counts, examines every face, 
 No rescued crew, no stranger can she trace! 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 199 
 
 Now within hail a hundred voices rise, 
 And the beach clamours with enquiring cries, 
 Lucy would fain repeat, " What ship, what ship ?" 
 But gasps for breath, and only moves her lip ; 
 Alas, poor trembler ! all thy hopes and doubts 
 Will soon be o'er, for loud the steersman shouts, 
 Ere yet the boat is in the breakers tost, 
 " A Yarmouth ship, the Seaton — all hands 
 
 lost!" 
 
 XXI. 
 See yon pale figure that beside her bed 
 Sits with disheveird locks and pendent head ; 
 Clasp'd are her hands, and fix'd her glassy eyes, 
 No tear she sheds, her bosom heaves no sighs ; 
 A vacant stupor wraps her pallid face, 
 She hears not, speaks not, moves not from her 
 
 place ; 
 And well might seem some ghastly thing of stone, 
 But for that shuddering shrink, that smother'd 
 
 moan. 
 
 o 4 
 
200 LUCY MILFOliD. 
 
 Alas, poor Lucy I who that sees thee now, 
 Would recognise the once unclouded brow, 
 The light that play'd in those. cerulean eyes, 
 Gay as the sunbeams of the summer skies ; 
 The angel smile that o'er thy features stole, 
 Temper'd by innocence, and fraught with souI 7 
 Ere yet a father's frown had banished gladness,, 
 Or lover's loss had driven thee to madness. 
 
 XXII. 
 Roused from her torpor she recalls by fits > 
 Her wonted looks, but not her wandering wits f 
 Loos'd by the shock, and in confusion thrown, 
 These, these have lost, for ever lost their tone ; 
 But as some noble instrument, decay'd, 
 Or idly by unmeaning childhood play'd, 
 Proves by its broken melody how much 
 It once could charm beneath a perfect touch, 
 So does her reason in untuned decline, 
 Betray the wreck of harmony divine. 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 201 
 
 Its sun has set, but o'er the mental skies, 
 Still shoots its gleams, and sparkles as it dies. 
 Does she attempt the lute, her fingers soon 
 Forget their art, and wander from the tune ; 
 With wildest pathos will she pour awhile 
 Some plaintive ballad, then with vacant smile 
 Break into merriment, and carol, free, 
 Some childish chaunt, with more than childish glee. 
 At times she paints with all her usual care 
 The flowers that bloom around, or landscape fair, 
 Then with fantastic scrawl o'erdaubs the whole, 
 Enjoys the freak, and laughs without controul ; 
 That laugh appalling, where the features flare 
 With joy, in which the reason owns no share ; 
 That midnight flash which only serves to heighten 
 The darkness of the scene it strives to brighten. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Sometimes with hurried step and anxious face ^ 
 
 In search of Charles she roams from place to place. 
 
202 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Tries every room, and, baffled in her aim, 
 Strays o'er the fields around, repeats his name, 
 Starts as the echo answers to her cries, 
 And gazes round with simpering surprise. 
 
 When home returning, as she winds along, 
 The village maids and children round her throng, 
 And sigh " Poor Lucy !" in each varied tone 
 Regret can dictate, or compassion own, 
 While many a blooming cheek is turn'd aside, 
 The rising sob or trickling tear to hide, 
 And the grey hair o'ershadows many an eye 
 Bedimm'd with sadness as she passes by. 
 
 When wildering thus, just sane enough to share, 
 But not to check the flowings of despair, 
 If o'er her harpsichord or lute she flings 
 Her hurried hands, and in her anguish sings, 
 Such thrilling tones the listening ear will greet, 
 So wild, pathetic, and withal so sweet, 
 Yet ever dash'd, with some appalling change, 
 To sounds so startling, horrible, and strange, 
 
LUCY MILFORD. 203 
 
 That the awed hearers shrink while they admire, 
 Feel their blood creep, and, shuddering, retire. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Yet there is one who marks with heart unwrung 
 The phrensied eye, the incoherent tongue ; 
 Who views with stubborn and contented gloom 
 The mangled mind, the daily withering bloom : 
 Nay, there is one who triumphs in her lot. 
 Yet bears the name, (kind nature own it not ! 
 O sacred goddess ! be that name unheard ; 
 Let hovering silence intercept the word, 
 Or some Sirocco, with its poisonous breath, 
 Howl it in deserts to the ear of death,) 
 The name of Father! ! 
 
 Yes, the same doting father, who, of late, 
 Seem'd wrapp'd and mingled in his Lucy's fate? 
 Till blind intolerance hurl'd her brand of fires 
 To break the daughter's heart and sear the sire's* 
 
204 LUCY MILFORD. 
 
 Callous and calm, he boasts his cruel zeal, 
 Disclaims the pang he thinks it crime to feel ; 
 Sees the fair wreck in mental darkness stroll, 
 Deeming her wits well lost to save her soul ; 
 And talks of Abraham, who kiss'd the rod, 
 And gave his child to reconcile his God. 
 
SONNETS, 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 Eternal and Omnipotent Unseen ! 
 
 Who bad'st the world, with all its lives complete, 
 Start from the void and thrill beneath thy feet, 
 
 Thee I adore with reverence serene ; 
 
 Here, in the fields, thine own cathedral meet, 
 
 Built by thyself, star-roof 'd, and hung with green, 
 Wherein all breathing things in concord sweet, 
 Organ'd by winds, perpetual hymns repeat. 
 
 Here hast thou spread that Book to every eye, 
 Whose tongue and truth all, all may read and 
 prove, 
 On whose three blessed leaves, Earth, Ocean, Sky, 
 Thine own right hand hath stamp 'd Might, Jus- 
 tice, Love ; 
 True Trinity, which binds in due degree, 
 God, man, and brute, in social unity. 
 
208 SONNETS. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 Beautiful Earth ! O how can I refrain 
 
 From falling down to worship thee ? Behold, 
 Over the misty mountains springs amain 
 
 The glorious Sun ; his flaming locks unfold 
 Their gorgeous clusters, pouring o'er the plain 
 
 Torrents of light. Hark ! chanticleer has toll'd 
 His matin bell, and the larks' choral train 
 
 Warble on high hosannas uncontrolPd. 
 
 All nature worships thee, thou new-born day ! 
 
 Blade, flower, and leaf, their dewy offerings pay, 
 Upon the shrine of incense -breathing earth ; 
 
 Birds, flocks, and insects, chaunt their morning lay; 
 Let me, too, join in the thanksgiving-mirth, 
 And praise, thro' thee, the God that gave thee 
 birth. 
 
SONNETS, 209 
 
 TO TH£ SETTING SUN. 
 
 Thou central eye of God, whose lidless ball 
 Is vision all around, dispensing heat, 
 
 And light, and life, and regulating all 
 
 With its pervading glance, how calm and sweet 
 Is thine unclouded setting : thou dost greet, 
 
 With parting smiles, the earth ; night's shadows fall, 
 But long where thou hast sunk shall splendours 
 meet, 
 
 And, lingering there, thy glories past recall. 
 
 O may my heart, like thee, unspotted, clear, 
 
 Be as a sun to all within its sphere ; 
 
 And when beneath the earth I seek my doom, 
 
 May I with smiling calmness disappear, 
 
 And friendship's twilight, hovering o'er my tomb, 
 Still bid my memory survive and bloom, 
 p 
 
210 SONNETS. 
 
 ON THE STATUE OF A PIPING FAWN. 
 
 Hark! hear'st thou not the pipe of Faunus, sweeping, 
 
 In dulcet glee, thro' Thessaly's domain ? 
 Dost thou not see embower'd wood-nymphs peeping 
 
 To watch the graces that around him reign, 
 While distant vintagers, and peasants reaping, 
 
 Stand in mute transport; listening to the strain, 
 And Pan himself, beneath a pine-tree sleeping, 
 
 Looks round, and smiles, then drops to sleep again ? 
 
 O happy Greece ! while thy blest sons were rovers, 
 Thro* all the loveliness this earth discovers, 
 
 They in their minds a brighter region founded, 
 Haunted by gods and sylvans, nymphs and lovers, 
 
 Where forms of grace thro* sunny landscapes 
 bounded, 
 
 By muste and enchantment all surrounded. 
 
SONNETS, 211 
 
 THE TWINS. 
 
 Thou laughing Julia, and Selina grave, 
 Of azure eye, and stout athletic limb, 
 
 Ye, whom one birth to our embraces gave, 
 Not like the modern twins, deform'd and slim, 
 But cast like those Latona bore to him 
 
 "Who wields the thunder ; may ye live to brave 
 The storms of fate, and in the sparkling brim 
 
 Of joy's full cup your lips for ever lave ! 
 
 O may the morning of each life be bright 
 As parents' wishes in their fondest flight ; 
 
 And may its evening be as calm a scene 
 As that which smiles around me while I write ; 
 Where ocean, by a cloudless sky made green, 
 Awaits the night, unruffled and serene, 
 p 2 
 
212 SONNETS. 
 
 ON A GREEN-HOUSE. 
 
 Here, from earth's daedal heights and dingles lowly, 
 The representatives of Nature meet ; 
 
 Not like a congress, or Alliance Holy, 
 
 Of kings, to rivet chains, but with their sweet 
 Blossomy mouths to preach the love complete, 
 
 That with pearl' d misletoe, and beaded holly, 
 Cloth'd them in green unchangeable, to greet 
 
 Winter with smiles, and banish melancholy. 
 
 I envy not th' Emathian madman's fame, 
 Who won the world, and built immortal shame, 
 On tears and blood; but if some flower, new- 
 found, 
 In its embalming cup might shroud my name, 
 Mine were a tomb more worthily renown'd, 
 Than Cheops' pile, or Artemisia's mound. 
 
SONNETS. 213 
 
 ON A STUPENDOUS LEG OF GRANITE, DISCOVERED 
 STANDING BY ITSELF IN THE DESERTS OF EGYPT, 
 WITH THE INSCRIPTION INSERTED BELOW. 
 
 In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, 
 
 Stands a gigantic leg, which far off throws 
 The only shadow that the desert knows. 
 
 " I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone, 
 " The king of kings : this mighty city shows 
 
 " The wonders of my hand/' The city's gone ! 
 Nought but the leg remaining to disclose 
 
 The site of that forgotten Babylon. 
 
 We wonder, and some hunter may express 
 Wonder like ours, when thro* the wilderness, 
 
 Where London stood, holding the wolf in chace, 
 He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess 
 What powerful, but unrecorded, race, 
 Once dwelt in that annihilated place, 
 p 3 
 
214< SONNETS. 
 
 TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, ESQ., ON HIS POEMS. 
 
 O thou bold herald of announcements high, 
 No prostituted muse inspired thy story, 
 
 But Hope and Love lent thee their wings, to fly 
 Forward into a coming age of glory, 
 When tyrannies and superstitions hoary, 
 
 Beneath the foot of Liberty shall lie, 
 
 And men shall turn from those oppressors gory, 
 
 To worship Peace, and Love, and Charity. 
 
 The heart that could conceive so bright a day, 
 Is proof that it may come ; therefore shall they 
 
 Who live on tears and darkness, steep each tooth 
 In poison'd gall, to make that heart their prey ; 
 But thou shalt smile and pity ; giving thy youth 
 To glorious hopes, and all-defying truth. 
 
SONNETS. 215 
 
 ON UNEXPECTEDLY RECEIVING A LETTER, WITH 
 A SUM OF MONEYS 
 
 Not for the miserable love of gain, 
 
 But that my friend, in his successes just, 
 Hath proved himself right worthy of my trust, 
 
 Do I rejoice ; and that his lines contain 
 
 A summer week's reprieve from toil and pain, 
 From Mammon's clutches, and the town's disgust. 
 
 For I have vow'd to all the nymphs who reign, 
 O'er grove and grot, that I would shake the dust 
 
 Off from my shoes, and, in their sylvan hold, 
 
 Make a green holiday. Pagans of old, 
 In marble fanes, their votive tribute hung ; 
 
 I in the woods my offerings will unfold, 
 
 And tender, like the birds, the leaves among, 
 A happy heart, and not untuneful tongue, 
 p 4 
 
216 SONNETS. 
 
 ON THE SPANISH REVOLUTION. 
 
 O now may I depart in peace ! for, lo ! 
 
 Spain, the priest-ridden and enslaved, hath riven 
 Her chains asunder ; and no rage, no flow 
 
 Of blood, save what the despot, phrensy-driven, 
 Wantonly shed. Did they not crush him? No; 
 
 All with magnanimous mercy was forgiven ! 
 Tyrants, the hour is coming, sure, tho' slow, 
 
 When ye no more can outrage earth and heaven. 
 
 As I would joy to see the assassin foil'd 
 By his own gun's explosion, so do I 
 
 Joy, that the oppressor's armies have recoil'd 
 Back on themselves ; for so shall they rely 
 
 On love, not fear, leaving the world o'ertoil'd 
 With war and chains, to peace and liberty. 
 
SONNETS. 217 
 
 TO MAMMON, 
 
 Mammon ! thou hast my body, not my mind ? 
 
 Duly by day I worship in thy train, 
 But in my home an evenimg temple find, 
 Where deities more holy are enshrined, 
 
 From whose dear homage may I ne'er refrain ; 
 
 For there the pure affections hold their reign, 
 And the day-fetter' d spirit, unconfined, 
 
 Thrills with delight to spread its wings again. 
 
 There, when the night's shut out, and those I love 
 Are bless'd to sleep, to brighter realms I rove, 
 
 Transported on the Muse's pinion swift, 
 Thro' sunny landscapes up to Him above, 
 Who gave the taste my fancies thus to lift, 
 And gratitude to thank Him for the gift. 
 
218 SONNETS. 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE PORCH OF BINSTEAD CHURCH, 
 ISLE OF WIGHT. 
 
 Farewell, sweet Binstead ! take a fond farewell 
 From one unused to sight of woods and seas, 
 
 Amid the strife of cities doom'd to dwell, 
 Yet roused to ecstasy by scenes like these, 
 Who could for ever sit beneath thy trees, 
 
 Inhaling fragrance from the flowery dell, 
 Or, listening to the murmur of the breeze, 
 
 Gaze with delight on Ocean's awful swell. 
 
 Again, farewell ! nor deem that I profane 
 
 Thy sacred porch ; for while the Sabbath strain 
 
 May fail to turn the sinner from his ways, 
 These are impressions none can feel in vain, 
 These are the wonders that perforce must raise 
 The soul to God, in reverential praise. 
 
SONNETS. 219 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 O what a palace rare hast thou created, 
 Almighty Architect, for man's delight, 
 
 With sun, and moon, and stars, illuminated ; 
 
 Whose azure dome with pictured clouds is bright, 
 Each painted by thy hand, a glorious sight ! 
 
 Whose halls are countless landscapes, variegated, 
 All carpeted with flowers ; while all invite 
 
 Each sense of man to be with pleasure sated. 
 
 Fruits hang around us ; music fills each beak ;' 
 The fields are perfumed ; and to eyes that seek 
 
 For Nature's charms, what tears of joy will start* 
 So, let me thank thee, God, not with the reek 
 Of sacrifice, but breathings pour'd apart, 
 And the blood-offering of a grateful heart. 
 
220 SONNETS. 
 
 TO A ROSE. 
 
 Thou new-born Rose, emerging from the dew, 
 
 Like Aphrodite, when the lovely bather 
 Blush' d from the sea, how fair thou art to view, 
 
 And fragrant to the smell ! The Almighty Father 
 Implanted thee, that men of every hue, 
 
 Even a momentary joy might gather ; 
 And shall he save one people, and pursue 
 
 Others to endless agony ? O rather 
 Let me believe in thee, thou holy Rose, 
 Who dost alike thy lips of love unclose, 
 
 Be thy abode by saint or savage trod. 
 Thou art the priest whose sermons soothe our woes, 
 
 Preaching, with Nature's tongue, from every sod, 
 
 Love to mankind, and confidence in God. 
 
SONNETS. 221 
 
 ON AN ANCIENT LANCE, HANGING IN AN ARMOURY. 
 
 Once in the breezy coppice didst thou dance, 
 And nightingales amid thy foliage sang ; 
 
 Form'd by man's cruel art into a lance, 
 
 Oft hast thou pierc'd (the while the welkin rang 
 With trump and drum, shoutings and battle clang,) 
 
 Some foeman's heart. Pride, pomp, and circum- 
 stance 
 Have left thee now, and thou dost silent hang, 
 
 From age to age, in deep and dusty trance. 
 
 What is thy change to ours ? these gazing eyes, 
 
 To earth reverting, may again arise 
 
 In dust, to settle on the self-same space ; 
 
 Dust, which some offspring, yet unborn, who tries 
 To poise thy weight, may with his hand efface, 
 And with his moulder'd eyes again replace. 
 
222 SONNETS. 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 Lone warbler I thy love-melting heart supplies 
 
 The liquid music-fall, that from thy bill 
 Gushes in such ecstatic rhapsodies, 
 
 Drowning night's ear. Yet thine is but the skill 
 Of loftier love, that hung up in the skies 
 
 Those everlasting lamps, man's guide, until 
 Morning return, and bade fresh flowers arise, 
 
 Blowing by night, new fragrance to distil. 
 
 Why are these blessings lavish' d from above 
 On man, when his unconscious sense and sight 
 
 Are closed in sleep ; but that the few who rove, 
 From want or woe, or travels urge by night, 
 May still have perfume, music, flowers, and light : 
 
 So kind and watchful is celestial love ! 
 
SONNETS. 223 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 Tis sweet to sit beneath these walnut-trees, 
 And pore upon the sun in splendour sinking, 
 
 And think upon the wond'rous mysteries 
 Of this so lovely world, until, with thinking, 
 Thought is bewilder'd, and the spirit, shrinking 
 
 Into itself, no outward object sees, 
 
 Still, from its inward fount, new visions drinking, 
 
 Till the sense swims in dreamy reveries. 
 
 Awaking from this trance, with gentle start, 
 'Tis sweeter still to feel th' o'erflowing heart 
 
 Shoot its glad gushes to the thrilling cheek, 
 To feel as if the yearning soul would start 
 Upwards to God, and by its flutters speak 
 Homage, for which all language is too weak. 
 
224 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 Hark ! how the branches of the trees 
 
 Rustle in the morning breeze. 
 
 Wave, wave your jocund heads on high, 
 
 Dance to the music of the sky, 
 
 For the sun has given warning 
 
 Of a bright and balmy morning. 
 
 As the climbing sailor-boy 
 
 First sees land, and shouts for joy, 
 
 So the lark from airy height 
 
 Catches first, and hails the light, 
 
 Piping up the feather'd races, 
 
 Nestling still in leafy places. 
 
 Yellow-cups and daisies press'd, 
 
 Where the cow has lain to rest, 
 
 By the sun recover'd slowly, 
 
 Struggle from their posture lowly, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 225 
 
 While the wild-flowers, which the field 
 Or the shelter 'd hedges yield, 
 Peeping from their hiding places 
 Show their vari-colour'd faces ; 
 Cowslips, primroses, and lilies, 
 Violets and daffodillies, 
 And infant buds of every hue 
 All baptized in glitt'ring dew. 
 Yonder is a girl who lingers 
 Where wild honeysuckle grows 
 Mingling with the briar rose, 
 And with eager outstretch'd fingers, 
 Tiptoe standing, vainly tries 
 To reach the hedge-envellop'd prize ; 
 But the school-bell on the wind 
 Sounding, warns her to be gone, 
 And she slowly saunters on, 
 Looking wistfully behind. 
 Air exults, and earth rejoices 
 In a thousand mingled voices. 
 Q 
 
226 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 As he plies his busy wings 
 The buzzing bee incessant sings, 
 Or in hare-bells hid, or clover, 
 Silently purloins their sweets, 
 When the honey-laden rover 
 Sings again as he retreats. 
 Lowing oxen, bleating lambs, 
 Answer'd by their list'ning dams ; 
 Chanticleer's resounding throat, 
 And the cuckoo's double note ; 
 And the sheep-bells' tinkling tattle, 
 And the runnel's guggling rattle, 
 Mixing all in tuneful glee, 
 Form the morning harmony. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 227 
 
 THE CONTRAST ; 
 
 WRITTEN UNDER WINDSOR TERRACE THE DAY 
 AFTER THE FUNERAL OF GEORGE THE THIRD. 
 
 I saw him last on this terrace proud, 
 
 Walking in health and gladness, 
 Begirt with his court ; and in all the crowd, 
 
 Not a single look of sadness. 
 
 Bright was the sun, and the leaves were green, 
 
 Blithely the birds were singing, 
 The cymbal replied to the tambourine, 
 
 And the bells were merrily ringing. 
 
 I have stood with the crowd beside his bier, 
 
 When not a word was spoken ; 
 But every eye was dim with a tear, 
 
 And the silence by sobs was broken. 
 q 2 
 
228 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 I have heard the earth on his coffin pour, 
 To the muffled drum's deep rolling ; 
 
 While the minute gun with its solemn roar, 
 Drown'd the death-bell's tolling. 
 
 The time since he walk'd in his glory thus, 
 To the grave till I saw him carried, 
 
 Was an age of the mightiest change to us, 
 But to him a night unvaried. 
 
 We have fought the fight ; — from his lofty throne 
 The foe of our land we have tumbled ; 
 
 And it gladden'd each eye, save his alone 
 For whom that foe we humbled. 
 
 A daughter beloved — a Queen — a son= — 
 And a son's sole child have perish'd ; 
 
 And sad was each heart, save the only one 
 By which they were fondest cherish'd. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 229 
 
 For his eyes were seal'd, and his mind was dark, 
 
 And he sat in his age's lateness, 
 Like a vision throned, as a solemn mark 
 
 Of the frailty of human greatness. 
 
 His silver beard o'er a bosom spread 
 
 Unvex'd by life's commotion, 
 Like a yearly-lengthening snow-drift shed 
 
 On the calm of a frozen ocean. 
 
 O'er him oblivion's waters boom'd, 
 As the stream of time kept flowing ; 
 
 And we only heard of our King when doom'd 
 To know that his strength was going. 
 
 At intervals thus the waves disgorge, 
 
 By weakness rent asunder, 
 A part of the wreck of the Royal George, 
 
 For the people's pity and wonder. 
 
230 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 He is gone at length ; he is laid in dust ; 
 
 Death's hand his slumbers breaking ; 
 For the coffin'd sleep of the good and just 
 
 Is a sure and blissful waking. 
 
 His people's heart is his funeral urn, 
 
 And should sculptur'd stone be denied him, 
 
 There will his name be found, when, in turn, 
 We lay our heads beside him. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 231 
 
 SICILIAN ARETHUSA. 
 
 Sicilian Arethusa ! thou, whose arms 
 
 Of azure round the Thymbrian meadows wind, 
 
 Still are thy margins lined 
 
 With the same flowers Proserpina was weaving 
 
 In Enna's field, beside Pergusa's lake, 
 
 When swarthy Dis, upheaving, 
 
 Saw her, and, stung to madness by her charms, 
 
 Down snatch'd her, shrieking, to his Stygian 
 
 couch. 
 Thy waves, Sicilian Arethusa, flow 
 In cadence to the shepherd's flageolet, 
 As tunefully as when they wont to crouch 
 Beneath the banks to catch the pipings low 
 Of old Theocritus, and hear him trill 
 Bucolic songs, and Amoebaean lays. 
 And still, Sicilian Arethusa, still 
 Though iEtna dry thee up, or frosts enchain, 
 Thy music shall be heard, for poets high 
 
232 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Have dipp'd their wreaths in thee, and by their 
 
 praise 
 Made thee immortal as themselves. Thy flowers, 
 Transplanted, an eternal bloom retain, 
 Rooted in words that cannot fade or die. 
 Thy liquid gush and guggling melody 
 Have left undying echoes in the bowers 
 Of tuneful poesy. Thy very name, 
 Sicilian Arethusa, had been drown'd 
 In deep oblivion, but that the buoyant breath 
 Of bards uplifted it, and bade it float 
 Adown the eternal lapse, assured of fame, 
 Till all things shall be swallow' d up in death. 
 Where, Immortality ! where canst thou found 
 Thy throne unperishing, but in the throat 
 Of the true bard, whose breath encrusts his theme 
 Like to a petrifaction, which the stream 
 Of time will only make more durable ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by A. and R. Spottiswoode, 
 Printers- Street, London. 
 
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