As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph's flight To the brink of the Dorian deep. "Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair!” To its blue depth stirred, Fled like a sunny beam; Behind her descended Her billows, unblended With the brackish Dorian stream. Like a gloomy stain Alpheus rushed behind,— A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind. Under the bowers Where the ocean powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones; Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones; Through the dim beams Which amid the streams Weave a network of colored light. And under the caves, Outspeeding the shark, Under the ocean foam; And up through the rifts They passed to their Dorian home. And now from their fountains Down one vale where the morning basks 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 When they love but live no more. PEROY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE FOUNTAIN. INTO the sunshine, Full of light, Into the moonlight, Into the starlight, Ever in motion, Blithesome and cheery, Still climbing heavenward, Never aweary; Glad of all weathers, Still seeming best, Full of a nature Nothing can tame, Changed every momentEver the same; Ceaseless aspiring, Ceaseless content, Darkness or sunshine, Thy element; Glorious fountain! Let my heart be JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows, And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven; For he who with his Maker walks aright, And cherry-blossoms, and white caps whose Shall be their lord as ADAM was before; wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine astray; His ear shall catch each sound with new de light, Each object wear the dress that then it wore; JONES VERY |