A gleaming shoulder cut the stream, and lo!

The Naiad rose to hear me melodise;

She, like a blue-vein'd lily white as snow,

Floated, with half-closed eyes.

And, ere my eyes were 'ware, the boughs around

Were populous with faces strange and glad, That droopt pale under-lips and drank the sound, And grew divinely sad.

Far down the glade where many shadows slept,
Stain'd purple with the swollen leaves of vine,
I saw Silenus :-liquid music crept

Into his blood, like wine :

Tiptoe, like one who fears to break a spell,

He crept to me, with eyeballs blank as glassNot drawing breath till, at my knees, he fell

Full length upon the grass :

Then, leaning his fork'd chin upon his hand,

He listen'd, dead to drunken joy and strife, And lo! his face grew smooth and soft and bland With some sublimer life.

V

Goat-footed fauns and satyrs one by one,

With limbs upon the sward at random thrown, Gather'd, and darken'd round me in the sun

Like moveless shapes of stone.

And straight before me, o'er the green hillside,
Quaint shapes across the sunset linger'd bright,
Till the white eyes of heaven opening wide
Swam dewy, in delight.

The dusky twilight rustled o'er the place,
Full of sweet airs and odour and cool shade,

But music made a lamp of every face

In the swart forest-glade.

Then, in a pearly shower of cool moonbeams,
Upsprang Silené to her azure arc,

Scattering light and silence and sweet dreams
On weary eyelids dark :

The music sadden'd, the moist greenwood stirr'd
And sigh'd, the moonlight clothed us in its veil,
And stooping down the milky goddess heard
The music and grew pale.

For as they listen'd, satyrs, nymphs, and fauns
Grew credulous of their immortality-

Yea, the weird spirits of the woods and lawns,

Gross, weak, and vile to see

Whence her pure light disturb'd them, and they strove With wild scared looks to fright away the charm ; But the bright light grew brighter, from above

Shaken with pearly arm.

They could not fly, they could not move nor speak,
The music held them like a hand of strength-
They hid their faces, wild, abash'd, and weak,

And, list'ning, writhed full length.

The Naiad lifted up her dewy chin,

And heard, and knew, and saw the light with love, Made peaceful by a purity akin

To that faint face above.

And countless beauteous spirits of the shade

Were conscious of themselves and felt no fear;

Far Echo, nestling in green silence, made

Answer that all could hear.

Till, when I ceased to sing, the satyrs rush'd
Back to their sports, to riot and carouse;

Self-fearful faces of the forest blush'd

And rustled into boughs;

Lastly, Silenus to his knees upcrept,

Rubb'd his blear'd eyelids puffy like the vine,

Stared blankly round him, vow'd that he had slept, And bawl'd aloud for wine.

IX.

POLYPHEME'S PASSION.

Ho, Silenus !—no one here!

The kitchen empty, the flocks in stalls,
The red fire flickering over the walls,

And-a young kid spitted-dainty cheer!
Ho, Silenus !-tipsy old reveller,

Soft-zone-unloosener, bright-hair-disheveller,

Where are you hiding, you tipsy old hound you, With your beard of a goat and your eyes of a lamb ?

Ho, Cyclops!

SILENUS.

POLYPHEME.

He mocks me! Where are you, confound you?