VOL. I.

VI.

My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,

Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasped in his embrace.

8

CENONE.

THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.

The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down.
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling through the cloven ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.

Behind the valley topmost Gargarus

Stands up and takes the morning; but in front The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal

Troas and Ilion's columned citadel,

The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon

Mournful Enone, wandering forlorn

Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.

Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

"O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:
The grasshopper is silent in the grass:
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
The purple flowers droop: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.

“O mother Ida, many fountained Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves,

That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God;

Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all

My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

"O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,

Leading a jet-black goat white-horned, white-hooved,
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Far-off the torrent called me from the cleft:

Far up the solitary morning smote

The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes

I sat alone: white breasted like a star

Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin

Drooped from his shoulder, but his sunny hair
Clustered about his temples like a God's;

And his cheek brightened as the foam-bow brightens

When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.

"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I looked
And listened, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.

Beautiful-browed Enone, my own soul,

Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind engraven "For the most fair," would seem to award it thine, As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt

The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace

Of movement, and the charm of married brows.'

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, And added, "This was cast upon the board, When all the full-faced presence of the Gods Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon Rose feud, with question unto whom 't were due: