 | Eclogues and monodramas |  |
117
THE NAIAD.
River of mine, dear source and parent stream,Thy daughter loves upon thy lucid edge
To dream away the summer, and entwine
Thy lilies in her locks the long day thro'.
No sister naiad mine to take delight
Among thy ripples with me, nor beguile
The lazy silence with alternate song.
I am alone with nature and my sire.
How sweet recumbent by thy gleamy rims
To watch this azure Iris floating out
Her curtained petals in the rosy dawn.
118
Rising and bending in the cloven stream,
With all its hoary blooms just crisp with wind.
The pastimes of a lonely nymph are these,
Not undelightful days of pensive calm:
There is a cavern where I love to sleep,
With reedy echoes slumberous at its mouth,
And overgrown with fern leaves intricate;
The bees are rustling thro' it all day long,
And drop on drop an amber rillet falls.
No mortal eye has seen my secret nest.
Thence I behold the pastoral vale and meads
Fostered for ever by my father's wave.
Thence in mysterious morning I have heard
Delicious music far and faint: its notes
Float lost in sleepy vales and seem the flute
Of some immortal, viewless in deep woods,
Striving with silence thro' an Orphic fall
Of melody. Beyond, the piny steep
Exhales a golden vapour, and between
The long-drawn foldings of its sacred vales
A foremost temple-porch aërial, set
On purple cliff wine-dark with granite scars.
I listen as the throbbing music dies,
And find another impulse at my heart.
Its mighty weird prevails against my peace
Destroying god-like calm, and makes me feed
On future like a mortal, with the dreams
Of earthly love, unmeet divine repose
That knows not sorrow.
Fostered for ever by my father's wave.
Thence in mysterious morning I have heard
Delicious music far and faint: its notes
Float lost in sleepy vales and seem the flute
Of some immortal, viewless in deep woods,
Striving with silence thro' an Orphic fall
119
Exhales a golden vapour, and between
The long-drawn foldings of its sacred vales
A foremost temple-porch aërial, set
On purple cliff wine-dark with granite scars.
I listen as the throbbing music dies,
And find another impulse at my heart.
Its mighty weird prevails against my peace
Destroying god-like calm, and makes me feed
On future like a mortal, with the dreams
Of earthly love, unmeet divine repose
That knows not sorrow.
Will no hero come?
Either beneath the tremulous arch of eve,
Or thro' the burning dews of sacred morn,
And fold me on his heart, and weave me tales
Of high achievement, how he braved and slew
The dragon in his fastness? Of great wars,
Like old Titanic conflict with the gods,
Wherein his arm had wrestled strong as they.
Then should I love him as he told, and waste
My thirsty soul in fervour on his lips;
For I am here alone and cumbered down
With lonely and unloved divinity.
Sweet is this nature, dear my parent stream:
I love the velvet hills, and joy to hear
The inarticulate music of the earth:
And this calm mind immortal, weighing all
In contemplation and uneager rest,
Is very sweet: why ask this toil of love?
Nay, love is more than these, and these with love
Are more delicious.
Either beneath the tremulous arch of eve,
Or thro' the burning dews of sacred morn,
And fold me on his heart, and weave me tales
Of high achievement, how he braved and slew
The dragon in his fastness? Of great wars,
Like old Titanic conflict with the gods,
Wherein his arm had wrestled strong as they.
120
My thirsty soul in fervour on his lips;
For I am here alone and cumbered down
With lonely and unloved divinity.
Sweet is this nature, dear my parent stream:
I love the velvet hills, and joy to hear
The inarticulate music of the earth:
And this calm mind immortal, weighing all
In contemplation and uneager rest,
Is very sweet: why ask this toil of love?
Nay, love is more than these, and these with love
Are more delicious.
Father mine, reclined
On thy cold urn, whose everlasting flow
Shall make the riper harvest and enrich
Innumerable kingdoms, seer and sire,
Canst thou unroll the mists across my fate,
And read if I am lonely evermore?
I love thee well, but thy love is not all:
There is a something sweeter yet to be.
On thy cold urn, whose everlasting flow
Shall make the riper harvest and enrich
Innumerable kingdoms, seer and sire,
Canst thou unroll the mists across my fate,
And read if I am lonely evermore?
I love thee well, but thy love is not all:
There is a something sweeter yet to be.
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