Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/158



A full-born beauty new and exquisite? She fled into that valley they pass o'er Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas' shore; And rested at the foot of those wild hills, The rugged founts of the Peræan rills, And of that other ridge whose barren back Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack, South-westward to Cleone. There she stood About a young bird's flutter from a wood, Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread, By a clear pool, wherein she passioned To see herself escaped from so sore ills, While her robes flaunted with the daffodils. Ah, happy Lycius!—for she was a maid More beautiful than ever twisted braid, Or sigh'd, or blush'd, or on spring-flower'd lea Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy: A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore Of love deep learned to the red heart's core: Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain To unperplex bliss from its neighbor pain; Define their pettish limits, and estrange Their points of contact, and swift counterchange, Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art; As though in Cupid's college she had spent Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent, And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.


 * Why this fair creature chose so fairily

By the wayside to linger, we shall see;