The Blue Poetry Book

ARETHUSA

ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian

tains,

moun

From cloud and from crag, With many a jag Shepherding her bright fountains.

She leapt down the rocks
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western
gleams:

And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep.

The Earth seemed to love her And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep.

Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains strook,

And opened a chasm

In the rocks:-with the spasm All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind
It concealed behind
The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below.
The beard and the hair
Of the River-god were

Weave a network of coloured

light;

And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night:

Outspeeding the shark,

And the swordfish dark,Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts,They passed to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morn

ing basks,

Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel; And at night they sleep

In the rocking deep

Beneath the Ortygian shore,

Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky

When they love but live no more.

THE DAY IS DONE

THE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist ;

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

SHELLEY.

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labour,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.

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