HAIDÉE

ENTERING THE CAVE.

AND Haidée met the morning face to face;
Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush
Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose race
From heart to cheek is curb'd into a blush,
Like to a torrent which a mountain's base,

That overpowers some Alpine river's rush,
Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles spread;

Or the Red Sea-but the sea is not red.

And down the cliff the island virgin came,

And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew, While the sun smiled on her with his first flame, And young Aurora kiss'd her lips with dew, Taking her for a sister; just the same

Mistake you would have made on seeing the two, Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair,

Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.