Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/19



Within a little space again it gave Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave, To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking Through copse-clad valleys—ere their death, o'ertaking The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.


 * And now, as deep into the wood as we

Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmer'd light Fair faces and a rush of garments white, Plainer and plainer showing, till at last Into the widest alley they all past, Making directly for the woodland altar. O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue falter In telling of this goodly company. Of their old piety, and of their glee: But let a portion of ethereal dew Fall on my head, and presently unmew My soul, that I may dare, in wayfaring, To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.


 * Leading the way, young damsels danced along,

Bearing the burden of a shepherd's song; Each having a white wicker, overbrimm'd With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks As may be read of in Arcadian books; Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe, When the great deity, for earth too ripe, Let his divinity o'erflowing die In music, through the vales of Thessaly: Some idly trail'd their sheep-hooks on the ground, And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound