 | Silenus |  |
Long after Dionysus and his rout
Had vanished, and the airy echoes ceased
Of distant laugh and thrilling cymbal-clash;
When noon, and brooding silence lay like thought
On the green ocean of the woods afar,
Silenus still was standing, cup in hand,
Gazing, or as in gaze, on its device.
He had beheld the baby arms outstretched
To reach the dancing grapes a teasing nymph
Dangled in nearness never to be touched;
And this recalled a tale his Syrinx told:
How when a babe, fresh from her mother's arms,
She first stepped forth and walked. Lying one day
Within her father's orchard, on the grass,
Babbling to one drooped apple overhead,
Her mother noted how she fain would pull
The mellow prize, and plucked it from the bough;
Then, placing Syrinx on her little feet
Against the tree, went off a pace or two,
Holding the bright temptation nigh her reach.
To seize it in her eager hands the babe
Unconsciously moved forward step by step
After the wondering mother; who, enrapt,
Snatched up the child and kissed her out of breath.
Had vanished, and the airy echoes ceased
Of distant laugh and thrilling cymbal-clash;
When noon, and brooding silence lay like thought
On the green ocean of the woods afar,
Silenus still was standing, cup in hand,
Gazing, or as in gaze, on its device.
He had beheld the baby arms outstretched
To reach the dancing grapes a teasing nymph
Dangled in nearness never to be touched;
64
How when a babe, fresh from her mother's arms,
She first stepped forth and walked. Lying one day
Within her father's orchard, on the grass,
Babbling to one drooped apple overhead,
Her mother noted how she fain would pull
The mellow prize, and plucked it from the bough;
Then, placing Syrinx on her little feet
Against the tree, went off a pace or two,
Holding the bright temptation nigh her reach.
To seize it in her eager hands the babe
Unconsciously moved forward step by step
After the wondering mother; who, enrapt,
Snatched up the child and kissed her out of breath.
| Silenus | |