Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/269

 THE LAMENT OF ORPHEUS 259

Names me once more. Old friend, I'm near;

Speak once again ; O, fly not yet ! 'Tis hushed ; no other sound I hear

Save that faint whisper, " Don't forget ! '"

But now no lingering beam betrays

The footsteps of the sunken sun ; And, through the soft and silvery haze.

The stars come twinkling one by one. Farewell ! Yet, if I might behold

Through the long past, without regret, All fair as thou — but eve grows old ;

I must remember to forjret.

��THE LAMENT OF ORPHEUS.

What now avails it me. To have been born of thee. Calliope ? O, why so well Learned I to touch the tuneful shell, By thee and by thy sister Muses taught ? Ah, woful day, when first these fingers caught From great Apollo's hand the lyre so richly wrought !

And what avails it now To have smoothed the rugged brow Of the fierce dragon, that in sleep Forgot what he was set to keep. While 'neath the cliffs, above our heads that hung, The hard-bound ship upon the waves I swung, And the rocks ceased to move, and listened while I sung ?

Or that in Thracian cave. Immured in living grave.

�� �