Page:Hephaestus, Persephone at Enna, and Sappho in Leucadia.djvu/39

 :With primrose faith and opiate asphodel.


 * Why brood on things turned ashes long ago
 * When softly dawn by golden dawn, and eve
 * By opal eve, Earth whispers: Life is good?


 * Once I had listened to you e’er I go;—
 * For like a god you seemed in those glad days
 * Of droning wings and languorous afternoons,
 * When close beside the murmuring sea we walked.
 * Then did the odorous summer ocean seem
 * A meadow green where foam one moment flowered
 * And then was gone, and ever came again,
 * A thousand blossom-burdened Springs in one!
 * —How like a god you seemed to me; and I
 * Was then most happy, and at little things
 * We lightly laughed, and oftentimes we plunged
 * Waist-deep and careless in the cool green waves,
 * As Tethys once and Oceanus played
 * Upon the golden ramparts of the world:
 * Then would we rest, and muse upon the sands,
 * Heavy with dreams and touched with some sad peace
 * Born of our very weariness of joy,
 * While drooped the wind and all the sea grew still
 * And unremembered trailed the idle oar
 * And no leaf moved and hushed were all the birds
 * And on the dunes the thin green ripples lisped
 * Themselves to sleep and sails swung dreamily,
 * Where azure islands floated on the air.