University of Virginia Library

Lycius! the female race is all the same!
All variable, as the Poets tell us;
Mad though caprice—half way 'twixt men and children!

Acasta, mildest late of all our maids,
Colder and calmer than a sacred well,
Is now more changed than Spring has changed these woods;
Hers is the fault, not mine. Yourself shall judge.

From Epidaurus, where for three long days
With Nicias I had stayed, honouring the God,
If strength might thus mine aged Sire renerve,
Last evening we returned. The way was dull
And vexed with mountains: tired ere long was I
From warding off the oleander boughs
Which, as my comrade o'er the stream's dry bed
Pushed on, closed backward on my mule and me.
The flies maintained a melody unblest;
While Nicias, of his wreath Nemean proud,
Sang of the Satyrs and the Nymphs all day
Like one by Esculapius fever-smitten.
Arrived at eve, we bathed; and drank, and ate
Of figs and olives till our souls exulted:
Lastly we slept like Gods. While morning shone,
So filled was I with weariness and sleep
That as a log till noon I lay, then rose,
And in the bath-room sat. While there I languished
Reading that old, divine and holy tale
Of sad Ismenè and Antigonè,
Two warm soft hands around me sudden flung
Closed both my eyes; and a clear, shrill, sweet laughter
Told me that she it was, Acasta's self,
That brake upon my dreams. ‘What would you, child?’
‘Child, child!’ Acasta cried, ‘I am no child—
You do me wrong in calling me a child!
Come with me to the willowy river's brim:
There read, if you must read.’

Her eyes not less
Than hands uplifted me, and forth we strayed.
O'er all the Argolic plain Apollo's shafts
So fiercely fell, methought the least had slain
A second Python. From that theatre
Hewn in the rock the Argive tumult rolled:
Before the fane of Juno seven vast oxen
Lowed loud, denouncing Heaven ere yet they fell:
While from the hill-girt meadows rose a scent
So rich, the salt sea odours vainly strove
To pierce those fumes it curled about my brain,
And sting the nimbler spirits. Nodding I watched
The pale herbs from the parched bank that trailed
Bathing delighted in voluptuous cold,
And scarcely swayed by that slow winding stream:
I heard a sigh—I asked not whence it came.
At last a breeze went by, to glossy waves
Rippling the steely flood: I noted then
The reflex of the poplar stem thereon
Curled into spiral wreaths, and toward me darting
Like a long, shining water-snake: I laughed
To see its restlessness. Acasta cried,
‘Read—if you will not speak—or look at me!’
Unconsciously I glanced upon the page,
Bent o'er it, and began to chaunt that song,
‘Favoured by Love are they that love not deeply,’
When, leaping from my side, she snatched the book,
Into the river dashed it, bounded by,
And, no word spoken, left me there alone.

Lycius! I see you smile; but know you not
Nothing is trifling which the Muse records,
And lovers love to muse on? Let the Gods
Act as to them seems fitting. Hermes loved—
Phœbus loved also—but the hearts of Gods
Are everlasting like the suns and stars,
Their loves as transient as the clouds. For me
A peaceful life is all I seek, and far
Removed from cares and all the female kind!