Outspeeding the shark, And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts They past to their Dorian home. V. And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. From their cradles steep Through the woods below And the meadows of Asphodel; Beneath the Ortygian shore; Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more. THE QUESTION. I. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, II. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wetsLike a child, half in tenderness and mirth Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. III. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; IV. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, With moonlight beams of their own watery light; V. Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours GOOD NIGHT. L GOOD night? ah! no; the hour is ill Then it will be good night. II. How can I call the lone night good, III. To hearts which near each other move HYMN OF APOLLO. I. THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, From the broad moonlight of the sky, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. II. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, III. the caves The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, |