But then on wider mischief bent

He hied him to the city;
And finding much to suit his taste,
He stayed there—more's the pity.

Men built him there a golden house,
Bedight with golden stars.
They feasted him on golden grain
And wine in golden jars.

They draped his pretty nakedness
In richest cloth of gold,
And set him up in business

Where Love was bought and sold.

And thus he led a city life,

Forgetting his nativity;

Since then he's gone from bad to worse,
From Cupid to Cupidity.

THE CYCLOPS: A PARAPHRASE ON THEOCRITUS.

MRS. BROWNING.

And so an easier life our Cyclops drew,

The ancient Polyphemus, who in youth.

Loved Galatea, while the manhood grew

Adown his cheeks and darkened round his mouth.

No jot he cared for apples, olives, roses;

Love made him mad; the whole world was neglected,

The very sheep went backward to their closes

From out the fair green pastures, self-directed.

And singing Galatea, thus, he wore

The sunrise down along the weedy shore,

And pined alone, and felt the cruel wound

Beneath his heart, which Cypris's arrow bore,

With a deep pang; but so the cure was found;

And sitting on a lofty rock he cast

His eyes upon the sea, and sang at last :

"O whitest Galatea, can it be

That thou shouldst spurn me, me, who love thee so?
More white than curds, my girl, thou art to see,

More meek than lambs, more full of leaping glee
Than kids, and brighter than the early glow

On grapes that swell to ripen,

sour like thee!

Thou comest to me with the fragrant sleep, And with the fragrant sleep thou goest from me ; Thou fliest, fliest, as a frightened sheep.

―

Flies the gray wolf! yet Love did overcome me,
So long ;
I loved thee, maiden, first of all
When down the hills (my mother fast beside thee)

I saw thee stray to pluck the summer-fall

Of hyacinth bells, and went myself to guide thee:

And since my eyes have seen thee, they can leave thee No more, from that day's light! But thou-by Zeus, Thou wilt not care for that to let it grieve thee!

I know thee, fair one, why thou springest loose
From my arm round thee, Why? I tell thee, dear!
One shaggy eyebrow draws its smudging road
Straight through my ample front, from ear to ear,
One eye rolls underneath; and yawning, broad
Flat nostrils feel the bulging lips too near.

Yet-ho, ho!-I,-whatever I appear,
Do feed a thousand oxen! When I have done
I milk the cows, and drink the milk that's best!
I lack no cheese, while summer keeps the sun;
And after, in the cold, it's ready prest!
And then I know to sing, as there is none

Of all the Cyclops can, a song of thee, Sweet apple of my soul on life's fair tree, And of myself who love thee, till the West

Forgets the light and all but I have rest.

I feed for thee, besides, eleven fair does
And four tame whelps of bears.

Come to me, Sweet! thou shalt have all of those
In change for love! I will not halve the shares.
Leave the blue sea, with pure white arms extended
To the dry shore; and in my cave's recess

Thou shalt be gladder for the moonlight ended, -
For here be laurels, spiral cypresses,

Dark ivy, and a vine whose leaves enfold

Most luscious grapes; and here is water cold

That wooded Ætna pours down through the trees
From the white snows, — which gods were scarce too bold

To drink in turn with nectar. Who with these

Would choose the salt wave of the lukewarm seas?
Nay, look on me! If I am hairy and rough,
I have an oak's heart in me; there's a fire

In these gray ashes which burns hot enough.
I grudge the flame no fuel, — not my soul,

I see thee, Fairest! Out, alas! I wish

My mother had borne me finned like a fish,
That I might plunge down in the ocean near thee,

And kiss thy glittering hand between the weeds,
If still thy face were turned; and I would bear thee
Each lily white and poppy fair that bleeds
Its red heart down its leaves ! one gift for hours

Of summer, one for winter; since, to cheer thee,

I could not bring at once all kinds of flowers.
Even now, girl, now, I fain would learn to swim,

If stranger in a ship sailed nigh, I wis,

That I may know how sweet a thing it is To live down with you in the Deep and Dim! Come up, O Galatea! from the ocean,

And having come, forget again to go!

As I, who sing out here my heart's emotion Could sit forever. Come up from below!

Come, keep my flocks beside me, milk my kine, Come, press my cheese, distrain my whey and curd !

Ah, mother! she alone, that mother of mine,

Did wrong me sore ! I blame her! - Not a word
Of kindly intercession did she address

Thine ear with, for my sake; and ne'er the less
She saw me wasting, wasting, day by day!
Both head and feet were aching, I will say,
All sick for grief, as I myself was sick!
O Cyclops, Cyclops, whither hast thou sent

Thy soul on fluttering wings? If thou wert bent
On turning bowls, or pulling green and thick

The sprouts to give thy lambkins - thou wouldst make thee A wiser Cyclops than for what we take thee.

Milk dry the present! Why pursue too quick That future which is fugitive aright?

Thy Galatea thou shalt haply find,—

Or else a maiden fairer and more kind;

For many girls do call me through the night,

And, as they call, do laugh out silverly.

I, too, am something in the world I see !"

While thus the Cyclops love and lambs did fold,

Ease came with song, he could not buy with gold.

This story is the subject of Raphael's famous painting, The Flight of Galatea.

THE DRYADS.

LEIGH HUNT.

These are the tawny Dryads, who love nooks
In the dry depth of oaks ;

Or feel the air in groves, or pull green dresses
For their glad heads in rooty wildernesses;
Or on the gold turf, o'er the dark lines
Which the sun makes when he declines,
Bend their linked dances in and out the pines.
They tend all forests old, and meeting trees,
Wood, copse, or queach, or slippery dell o'erhung
With firs, and with their dusty apples strewn ;
And let the visiting beams the boughs among.
And bless the trunks from clingings of disease
And wasted hearts that to the night-wind groan.
They screen the cuckoo when he sings; and teach
The mother blackbird how to lead astray

The unformed spirit of the foolish boy

From thick to thick, from hedge to bay or beach,
When he would steal the huddled nest away
Of yellow bills upgaping for their food,

And spoil the song of the free solitude.

And they, at sound of the brute, insolent horn,
Hurry the deer out of the dewy morn;
And take into their sudden laps with joy

The startled hare that did but peep abroad;

And from the trodden road

Help the bruised hedgehog. And at rest, they love

The back-turned pheasant, hanging from the tree His sunny drapery ;

The handy squirrel, nibbling hastily;

And fragrant hiving bee,

So happy that he will not move, not he,