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(From Greece, from Mount Helicon)
THEN be my guide, | |
| Wandering Termessus, upward through thy vale, | |
| And let me find, beneath the twisted boughs | |
| Of these old evergreens, coolness and shade, | |
| To make my toil the easier. Darkly rolls | 5 |
| Thy current under them, and hollower sounds | |
| Thy hidden roar. I just can catch a glimpse | |
| Of yon deep pool, dark and mysterious, | |
| Sunk in its well of rock; and now from out | |
| A tuft of seeded fern I see thee plunge, | 10 |
| Tinted with golden green, for there a sunbeam | |
| Strays through thy arch of shade. Still as I climb | |
| Thy voice goes with me, like the laborer’s song, | |
| To cheer me; and anon I see thee flashing | |
| Through the laburnum thickets, rivalling | 15 |
| Their golden flowers; and then thou rushest by | |
| Crested with foam, the whiter for the darkness | |
| That covers thee; and then I pause and hang | |
| Over a broad, smooth mirror, where the sky | |
| Looks in, and sees itself, as purely blue, | 20 |
| As vast and round, and all its cloudy folds, | |
| Their snowy bosses and their iris fringes | |
| Are there, and all the circling rocks repeat | |
| Their lights and shadows in that vacancy, | |
| So clear, it seems but air. Thou rollest on | 25 |
| Thus brightly, and for ages thou hast kept | |
| This ever-varying, yet eternal way; | |
| And like the voice of a divinity | |
| Thou pourest thy endless song. But now the rocks | |
| That hemmed thee in recede, and, round and fair, | 30 |
| The open vale of Aganippe smiles | |
| To greet me, as a fond and gentle mistress | |
| Welcomes her weary lover, when he comes | |
| At evening to her bower. | |
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