more

Make my horn parley from their foreheads

hoar:

Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll

Around the breathed boar: again I'll poll
The fair-grown yew-tree, for a chosen bow:
And, when the pleasant sun is getting low,
Again I'll linger in a sloping mead
To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed
Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered, sweet!
And, if thy lute is here, softly intreat
My soul to keep in its resolved course.'

Hereat Peona, in their silver source, Shut her pure sorrow-drops with glad exclaim,

490

And took a lute, from which there pulsing

came

A lively prelude, fashioning the way
In which her voice should wander. "T was
a lay

More subtle cadenced, more forest wild
Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child;
And nothing since has floated in the air
So mournful strange. Surely some influ-

ence rare

Went, spiritual, through the damsel's hand;

But soon she came, with sudden burst, upon Her self-possession - swung the lute aside, And earnestly said: 'Brother, 't is vain to hide

That thou dost know of things mysterious, Immortal, starry; such alone could thus Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinn'd in aught

Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught A Paphian dove upon a message sent ? 510 Thy deathful bow against some deer-herd bent,

Sacred to Dian? Haply, thou hast seen Her naked limbs among the alders green; And that, alas! is death. No, I can trace Something more high perplexing in thy face!'

541

'This river does not see the naked sky, Till it begins to progress silverly Around the western border of the wood, Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood

Seems at the distance like a crescent moon'
And in that nook, the very pride of June
Had I been used to pass my weary eves;
The rather for the sun unwilling leaves
So dear a picture of his sovereign power,
And I could witness his most kingly hour,
When he doth tighten up the golden reins,
And paces leisurely down amber plains 551
His suorting four. Now when his chariot
last

Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast,
There blossom'd suddenly a magic bed
Of sacred ditainy, and poppies red:
At which I wondered greatly, knowing well
That but one night had wrought this flow-
ery spell;

And, sitting down close by, began to muse
What it might mean. Perhaps, thought I,
Morpheus,

In passing here, his owlet pinions shook; Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook 561 Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth, Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,

Until my head was dizzy and distraught. Moreover, through the dancing poppies

stole

To what high fane?-Ah! see her hover ing feet,

More bluely vein'd, more soft, more whitely

sweet

Than those of sea-born Venus, when she

rose

From out her cradle shell. The wind outblows

Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion; 'Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed, Over the darkest, lushest bluebell bed, 61 Handfuls of daisies.'-'Endymion, how strange!

Dream within dream!'-'She took an airy range,

And then, towards me, like a very maid, Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid, And press'd me by the hand: Ah! 't was too much;

Methought I fainted at the charmed touch, Yet held my recollection, even as one Who dives three fathoms where the waters