To him her dripping hand she softly kist,
And anxiously began to plait and twist
Her ringlets round her fingers, saying:
'Youth!

Too long, alas, hast thou starved on the ruth,

The bitterness of love: too long indeed, Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I weed Thy soul of care, by heavens, I would offer All the bright riches of my crystal coffer To Amphitrite; all my clear-eyed fish, Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish, Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze;

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Yea, or my veined pebble-floor, that draws A virgin light to the deep; my grotto-sands, Tawny and gold, oozed slowly from far lands

By my diligent springs: my level lilies, shells,

My charming rod, my potent river spells;
Yes, every thing, even to the pearly cup
Meander gave me,
- for I bubbled up
To fainting creatures in a desert wild.
But woe is me, I am but as a child
To gladden thee; and all I dare to say,
Is, that I pity thee; that on this day
I've been thy guide; that thou must wander
far

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out

One faint eternal eventide of gems.
Aye, millions sparkled on a vein of gold,

He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread

All courts and passages, where silence dead, Roused by his whispering footsteps, murmur'd faint:

And long he traversed to and fro, to acquaint

Himself with every mystery, and awe; 270
Till, weary, he sat down before the maw
Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim,
To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.
There, when new wonders ceased to float
before,

And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore

The journey homeward to habitual self!
A mad pursuing of the fog-born elf,
Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-
brier,

Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,
Into the bosom of a hated thing.

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