As she withdrew into the golden cloud, And I was left alone within the bower; And from that time to this I am alone, And I shall be alone until I die.

'Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die. Fairest-why fairest wife? am I not fair? My love hath told me so a thousand times. Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, When I past by, a wild and wanton pard, Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?

Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my

arms

"Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest

Close, close to thine in that quick-falling

dew

Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

O mother, hear me yet before I die. They came, they cut away my tallest pines, My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge

High over the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Foster'd the callow eaglet-from beneath Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark

morn

The panther's roar came muffled, while I

sat

Low in the valley. Never, never more Shall lone Enone see the morning mist Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid

With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

'O mother, hear me yet before I die. I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,

Among the fragments tumbled from the

glens,

Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
The Abominable, that uninvited came
Into the fair Peleïan banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change; that I might speak

my mind,

And tell her to her face how much I hate Her presence, hated both of Gods and

men.

'O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hath he not sworn his love a thousand

times,

In this green valley, under this green hill, Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this

stone?

Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears? O happy tears, and how unlike to these! O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?

O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?

O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,

There are enough unhappy on this earth, Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: I pray thee, pass before my light of life, And shadow all my soul, that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die.

'O mother, hear me yet before I die.

I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and

more,

Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,

Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother Conjectures of the features of her child