Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/374

 364 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Full long I viewed the waves afar, Till, fain to seek my grassy bed,

I woke ! There was nor moon nor star — The sun was risen an hour o'erhead.

��A CHAT WITH THE MEDICEAN VENUS.

" Whence art thou, maiden, that, with fixbd gaze, Dreadest intruding foot ? Feel thou no fear !

One only to admire thee hither strays ;

No ruffian comes — there is no tempter near."

��" Ah, sir, full many an age a maid I stand. Nor yet grow old. I am as life in death,

And wait here at Cleomenes' command, Who gave existence, but forgot my breath.

" Deep in the solid rock my limbs were bound, Till that deliverer came to set me free ;

At last my prison cell his chisel found, And gladly I sprang forth to liberty.

" Alas, good man ! he labored many a day My glossy limbs their gracefulness to teach ;

But Pluto snatched him from this earth away, Just as my lips he would have formed for speech.

" So to thy mind mine eyes must dart my thought. Since by my tongue to express them I'm not free;

Full many an age his countenance I've sought. But all in vain. Good stranger, should you see,

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