Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/403

Rh Most beautiful of waters,

Receives the river

Whose trout are vocal,

The Aroanian stream—

Without home, without mother,

Hid the babe, hid Arcas,

The nursling of the dells?

But the sweet-smelling myrtle,

And the pink-flower'd oleander,

And the green agnus-castus,

To the west-wind's murmur,

Rustled round his cradle;

And Maia rear'd him.

Then, a boy, he startled,

In the snow-fill'd hollows

Of high Cyllenê,

The white mountain-birds;

Or surprised, in the glens,

The basking tortoises,

Whose striped shell founded

In the hand of Hermes

The glory of the lyre.

But his mother, Callisto,

In her hiding-place of the thickets

Of the lentisk and ilex

In her rough form, fearing

The hunter on the outlook,

Poor changeling! trembled.

Or the children, plucking

In the thorn-choked gullies

Wild gooseberries, scared her,

The shy mountain-bear!