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, 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, The dusky twilight rustled o'er the place, But music made a lamp of every face In the swart forest-glade. Then, in a pearly shower of cool moonbeams, Scattering light and silence and sweet dreams The music sadden'd, the moist greenwood stirr'd For as they listen'd, satyrs, nymphs, and fauns 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, 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 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, And-a young kid spitted-dainty cheer! 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? |