II.

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-god1 were
Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.

III.

Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!
And bid the deep hide me,

For he grasps me now by the hair!"
The loud Ocean heard,

To its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

1 In Mrs. Shelley's editions, river God.

With the brackish Dorian stream:

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,—

As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin1

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

IV.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers
Sit on their pearled thrones,
Through the coral woods.
Of the weltering floods,
Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams.

Which amid the streams
Weave a net-work of coloured light;
And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves
Are as green as the forest's night :-
Outspeeding the shark,

And the sword-fish dark,

Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rifts

Of the mountain clifts

They past to their Dorian home.

V.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning 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 noon-tide 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 QUESTION.1

I.

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,

And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring

1 First given by Mrs. Shelley in the Posthumous Poems.

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

II.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth-1

Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

III.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any' wakened eyes behold.

IV.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white, And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,

Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;

This line, omitted from Mrs. Shelley's editions, was discovered by

VOL. IV.

D

Mr. Garnett, and published in The
Westminster Review for July, 1870.

And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

V.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand,-and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!-Oh! to whom?

HYMN OF APOLLO.1

I.

THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,—
Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

II.

Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,

Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare.

1 Mrs. Shelley first gave this and the Hymn of Pan in the Posthumous Poems, with a note explaining that

the two Hymns were "written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas."