 | Sonnets and Other Poems |  |
72
PASTOR AB AMPHRYSO.
I
‘Thou seemest, O Lysanias, all distraught,And turnest from us, as intent to hear
Some far-off music, or as if thine ear
The voices of aerial spirits caught.’
‘Yea, so it is. Late, hastening homeward, near
This spot, I heard such notes that, sure, methought
Apollo from Olympus must have brought
His flute divine to charm our lower sphere.
Now the ecstatic carol of a bird,
And now a long-drawn passionate wail I heard.
Sudden it ceas'd; but, ever since, the sound
With bodiless presence haunts me, and I seem
To see not, or forget, the things around,
Wrapt in the cloudy covert of a dream’
73
II
‘Well! hast thou seen thy magic minstrel?’ ‘Yea,And spoken with him. Where Penéus pours
Between steep cliffs his flood to yonder shores,
I found him sitting thoughtful yesterday.
He gave me greeting kind, and bade me stay;
Then talk'd, and nobly, of Life, Love, and Art,
Of things divine and human, till the gray
Of evening fell around and made us part.
Creon, he is a god: such brow and eyes!
Music unmatch'd, and grand poetic thought!
The blessed ones, they tell us, oft descend
From their high dwelling, and in humble guise
Move amongst men. Unhappy they, my friend,
Who, meeting the Immortals, know them not.’
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