II.

Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains strook,
And opened a chasm

In the rocks :—with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind

It concealed behind

The urns of the silent snow,

And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below.
The beard and the hair
Of the River-god were

Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light

Of the fleet Nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.

III.

"Oh save me! Oh guide me! And bid the deep hide me! For he grasps me now by the hair!" The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream.

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main,

Alpheus rushed behind,—

As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

IV.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones ; Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods;

Over heaps of unvalued stones;

Through the dim beams

Which amid the streams

Weave a network of coloured light;
And under the caves

Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night:
Outspeeding the shark,

And the sword-fish dark,

Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rifts

Of the mountain-clifts,

They passed to their Dorian home.

V.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap

From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below,
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep

Beneath the Ortygian shore,

Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky,

When they love but live no more.

HYMN OF APOLLO.

I.

THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries

From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,
Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

II.

Then I arise, and, climbing heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,

Leaving my robe upon the ocean-foam ;—

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are filled with my bright presence; and the air Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

III.

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill

Fly me, and from the glory of my ray

Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of Night.

IV.

I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers,
With their etherial colours; the moon's globe,
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers,

Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on earth or heaven may shine
Are portions of one power, which is mine.

V.

I stand at noon upon the peak of heaven;
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ;

For grief that I depart they weep and frown.
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western isle ?
VOL. III.

5

VI.

I am the eye with which the universe
Beholds itself, and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,

All prophecy, all medicine, are mine,
All light of Art or Nature ;-to my song
Victory and praise in its own right belong.'

HYMN OF PAN.

FROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come ;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle-bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,

And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Temple lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,

To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,

Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the dædal earth,

And of heaven, and the Giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth.
And then I changed my pipings,—

Singing how down the vale of Mænalus
I pursued a maiden, and clasped a reed :
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ;

It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.
All wept-as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood-
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

THE QUESTION.

I.

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring ;

And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

II.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets;

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth-.

Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears
When the low wind its playmate's voice it hears.

III.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the Day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray ; And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eves behold.