Page:Rape of Prosperine - Claudian (1854).djvu/35

 Whose glistening curve across the skies is thrown, And girds the rain-cloud with an emerald zone.
 * The plain, than all its flowers more lovely still,

Sloped gently up, and swelled into a hill: From pumice grots the bounding streamlets flowed, And kissed the herbage on their downward road; While 'gainst the fiercest heats a shadowy grove The cool protection of its branches wove. There cast, though summer reigned, a wintry gloom The Jove-loved oak, and cypress of the tomb; Pine meet for ships, and cornel for the fray, With ilex honey-stored, and prescient bay: There traced the crisped box its waving line, There crept the ivy, and there clung the vine.
 * Hard by, a lake extends its waters cold,

(The name was Pergus which it took of old) To skirt the woodland glade, whose leafy fringe Sheds o'er its tranquil verge a paler tinge. The still expanse, in cloudless purity, Invites the gazer's undistracted eye To pierce its surface, and, where calm they sleep, Reveals the treasures of its inmost deep.
 * Light flies the troop along those flowery meads,

Joy wings their steps, and Cytherea leads: