| |
| A HOARY gleam through boughs prevailing | |
| Tells me how near the ocean lies, | |
| Here caged in many a waveless lake | |
| By cypressed ridge and shadowy brake: | |
| Far off the nightingale is wailing: | 5 |
| More near the watery grot replies. | |
| |
| The forest growths are rocked and dandled | |
| By airs with midnight odors faint, | |
| Soft, separate airs, o’er feathered grass | |
| That pass me often and repass, | 10 |
| Like naked feet of nymphs unsandalled | |
| That tread each lawn and alley quaint. | |
| |
| No voice is heard of mortal creature! | |
| No voice,—yet I am not alone: | |
| Nausicaa and her virgin train | 15 |
| Still haunt the woodland, skirt the main, | |
| And deck for me with human feature | |
| Each glimmering branch and white-browed stone. | |
| |
| When with those maids the exile sported | |
| The fireflies lit, as now, the glen: | 20 |
| That rose its blush to-day which gave | |
| And bosom to the aspiring wave, | |
| Descends from one old Ocean courted, | |
| On the same cliff it may be, then! | |
| |
| I see not now those hills whose summits | 25 |
| In August keep their ermined robes; | |
| But feel their freshness, know that round | |
| They gird the steely gulfs profound | |
| With feet that mock the seamen’s plummets, | |
| And foreheads crowned with starry globes. | 30 |
| |
| But see! vast beams divide the heaven; | |
| The orange-groves their blossoms show; | |
| Over yon kindling deep the Moon | |
| Will lash her snowy coursers soon: | |
| Now, by her brow the east is riven! | 35 |
| And now the west returns the glow! | |
| |
