A Sicilian Story :: :: University of Virginia Library

TRAVELLER.
This is a lovely spot. Here let us rest,
Beneath this branching oak, and make the grass
Our bed awhile. Shepherd! this spot indeed
Were worthy some tradition: hast thou none
Stored in thy memory, to beguile the time
While the sky burns above us? Why, methinks,
The very seasons meet, flinging the buds
Of Spring in the lap of Summer. Every tree
That prodigal Nature gives springs forth, and seems
The fairest of its kind. The poplar there
Shoots up its spire and shakes its leaves i' the sun
Fantastical, while 'round its slender base
Rambles the sweet-breath'd woodbine: There beside,
Glooms the dark cypress, and the ash seems to sigh
Lest it should fling its berries to the blast:
There crawls the vine; there the pale rose doth hang
Her head like a love-sick girl: on high the cedar
Stoops, like a monarch to his people bending,
And casts his sweets around him—Where are we?

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GUIDE.
I had almost forgot the place. This was
A Dryad's home: Beneath this ancient oak
(First o' the forest) that doth spread its arms
Abroad, and stands again regenerate,
She liv'd. She loved, it seems, a mortal, but
The fairest youth in Phocis: on his brow
Sate a mild beauty, (such the ancients paint
Hylas or Hyacinth, or who died self slain
Narcissus;)—Here she passed her life, and caught
Youth from the changing year. She lov'd to lie
At noontide on yon slope, and muse upon
Her sad and lonely destiny. At last,
Quitting her sacred tree (here had she dwelt
The spirit of the place) she plunged within
Yond bend of the Cephisus, where you see
The waves flow darker and the ripples sink
To silence: yet she died not, for some god
(Then watching from his orb) saved the poor nymph
And fixed her in the skies, a star 'tis thought,
For ever when the setting sun departs
On April evenings or in early May,
(That time she left us) a pale star is seen
Brightly to shine on that part of the stream
Wherein she plunged; and ever when it shines
The trees around the place are mov'd, as if

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By airs from Heav'n, and sweetness steams about:
The dark pines bend their heads: that sacred oak
Lets falls its leaves, as when on Autumn nights
The north wind (Winter's fierce precursor) roams
Amongst the branches howling, and disrobes
The shrubs of all their green: pale Syrinx then
Moans in the reeds, and sweet Aglaia (she
Still constant to the inconstant rivulet,)
Troubles the faint Cephisus' course, and breathes
Music along the waters.