The Works of Thomas Love Peacock

Long, wide, and far, the youth has strayed,
Forlorn, and pale, and wild with woe,
And found no rest. His loved, lost maid,
A beauteous, sadly-smiling shade,
Is ever in his thoughts, and slow
Roll on the hopeless, aimless hours.
Sunshine, and grass, and woods, and flowers,
Rivers, and vales, and glittering homes
Of busy men, where'er he roams,
Torment his sense with contrast keen,
Of that which is, and might have been.

The mist that on the mountains high
Its transient wreath light-hovering flings,
The clouds and changes of the sky,
The forms of unsubstantial things,
The voice of the tempestuous gale,
The rain-swoln torrent's turbid moan,
And every sound that seems to wail
For beauty past and hope o'erthrown,
Attemper with his wild despair;
But scarce his restless eye can bear
The hills, and rocks, and summer streams,
The things that still are what they were
When life and love were more than dreams.

It chanced, along the rugged shore,
Where giant Pelion's piny steep
O'erlooks the wide Ægean deep,
He shunned the steps of humankind,
Soothed by the multitudinous roar
Of ocean, and the ceaseless shock
Of spray, high-scattering from the rock

In the wail of the many-wandering wind.
A crew, on lawless venture bound,
Such men as roam the seas around,
Hearts to fear and pity strangers,
Seeking gold through crimes and dangers,
Sailing near, the wanderer spied.
Sudden, through the foaming tide,
They drove to land, and on the shore
Springing, they seized the youth, and bore
To their black ship, and spread again
Their sails, and ploughed the billowy main.

Dark Ossa on their watery way
Looks from his robe of mist; and, grey
With many a deep and shadowy fold,
The sacred mount, Olympus old,
Appears: but where with Therma's sea
Penëus mingles tranquilly,
They anchor with the closing light
Of day, and through the moonless night
Propitious to their lawless toil,
In silent bands they prowl for spoil.

Ere morning dawns, they crowd on board,
And to their vessel's secret hoard
With many a costly robe they pass,
And vase of silver, gold, and brass.
A young maid too their hands have torn
From her maternal home, to mourn
Afar, to some rude master sold,
The crimes and woes that spring from gold.

—“There sit!”—cried one in rugged tone,—
“Beside that boy. A well-matched pair

Ye seem, and will, I doubt not, bear,
In our good port, a value rare.
There sit, but not to wail and moan:
The lyre, which in those fingers fair
We leave, whose sound through night's thick shade
To unwished ears thy haunt bewrayed,
Strike; for the lyre, by beauty played,
To glad the hearts of men was made.”—

The damsel by Anthemion's side
Sate down upon the deck. The tide
Blushed with the deepening light of morn.
A pitying look the youth forlorn
Turned on the maiden. Can it be?
Or does his sense play false? Too well
He knows that radiant form. 'Tis she,
The magic maid of Thessaly,
'Tis Rhododaphne! By the spell,
That ever round him dwelt, opprest,
He bowed his head upon his breast,
And o'er his eyes his hand he drew,
That fatal beauty's sight to shun.
Now from the orient heaven the sun
Had clothed the eastward waves with fire:
Right from the west the fair breeze blew:
The full sails swelled, and sparkling through
The sounding sea the vessel flew:
With wine and copious cheer the crew
Caroused: the damsel o'er the lyre
Her rapid fingers lightly flung,
And thus, with feigned obedience, sung.

—“The Nereid's home is calm and bright,

The ocean-depths below,
Where liquid streams of emerald light
Through caves of coral flow.
She has a lyre of silver strings
Framed on a pearly shell,
And sweetly to that lyre she sings
The shipwrecked seaman's knell.

The ocean-snake in sleep she binds;
The dolphins round her play:
His purple conch the Triton winds
Responsive to the lay:
Proteus and Phorcys, sea-gods old,
Watch by her coral cell,
To hear, on watery echoes rolled,
The shipwrecked seaman's knell.”—

—“Cease!”—cried the chief in accents rude—
“From songs like these mishap may rise.
Thus far have we our course pursued
With smiling seas and cloudless skies.
From wreck and tempest, omens ill,
Forbear; and sing, for well I deem
Those pretty lips possess the skill,
Some ancient tale of happier theme;
Some legend of imperial Jove,
In uncouth shapes disguised by love;
Or Hercules, and his hard toils;
Or Mercury, friend of craft and spoils;
Or Jove-born Bacchus, whom we prize
O'er all the Olympian deities.”—

He said, and drained the bowl. The crew
With long coarse laugh applauded. Fast

With sparkling keel the vessel flew,
For there was magic in the breeze
That urged her through the sounding seas.
By Chanastræum's point they past,
And Ampelos. Grey Athos, vast
With woods far-stretching to the sea,
Was full before them, while the maid
Again her lyre's wild strings assayed,
In notes of bolder melody:

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