University of Virginia Library

Can I forget that beauteous day,
When, shelter'd from the burning beam,
First in thy haunted grot I lay,
And loos'd my spirit to its dream,
Beneath the broken arch, o'erlay'd
With ivy, dark with many a braid
That clasp'd its tendrils to retain
The stone its roots had writh'd in twain?
No Zephyr on the leaflet play'd,
No bent-grass bow'd its slender blade,
The coiled snake lay slumber-bound:
All mute, all motionless around,
Save, livelier, while others slept,
The lizard on the sun-beam leapt,
And louder, while the groves were still,
The unseen cigali, sharp and shrill,
As if their chirp could charm alone
Tir'd noontide with its unison.

Stranger! that roam'st in solitude!
Thou too, 'mid tangling bushes rude,
Seek in the glen, yon heights between,
A rill more pure than Hippocrene,
That from a sacred fountain fed
The stream that filled its marble bed.
Its marble bed long since is gone,
And the stray water struggles on,
Brawling thro' weeds and stones its way.
There, when o'erpow'r'd at blaze of day,
Nature languishes in light,
Pass within the gloom of night,
Where the cool grot's dark arch o'ershades
Thy temples, and the waving braids
Of many a fragrant brier that weaves
Its blossom thro' the ivy leaves.
Thou, too, beneath that rocky roof,
Where the moss mats its thickest woof,
Shalt hear the gather'd ice-drops fall
Regular, at interval,
Drop after drop, one after one,
Making music on the stone,
While every drop, in slow decay,
Wears the recumbent Nymph away.
Thou too, if ere thy youthful ear
Thrill'd the Latian lay to hear,
Lull'd to slumber in that cave,
Shalt hail the Nymph that held the wave;
A goddess, who there deign'd to meet
A mortal from Rome's regal seat,
And o'er the gushing of her fount,
Mysterious truths divine to earthly ear recount.