ARETHUSA. ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains,— Her steps paved with green She went, ever singing, In murmurs as soft as sleep; The Earth seemed to love her, As she lingered towards the deep. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm In the rocks;—with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It concealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder N The bars of the springs below: To the brink of the Dorian deep. "Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair !” The loud Ocean heard, To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer; And under the water The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam; Behind her descended Her billows, unblended With the brackish Dorian stream: Like a gloomy stain On the emerald main Alpheus rushed behind,— A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind. Under the bowers Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones, Over heaps of unvalued stones; Which amid the streams Weave a network of coloured light; Are as green as the forest's night :- And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. In the cave of the shelving hill; And the meadows of Asphodel; Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more. SONG OF PROSERPINE. WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA. SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth, Thou from whose immortal bosom, If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow, in scent and hue, Fairest children of the hours, Breathe thine influence most divine On thine own child, Proserpine. Poems of Home Life. TO MARY SHELLEY. O MARY dear, that you were here Singing love to its lone mate In the ivy bower disconsolate; And your brow more Mary dear, come to me soon, O Mary dear, that you were here; |