HOLDING one hand against his ear,
To list a footfall ere he saw
The wood nymph, staid the Tuscan king to hear
Of wisdom and of law.
Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love,
Hung over her enamoured, and beheld
Beauty which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces; then, with voice
Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,
Her hand soft touching, whispered thus: "Awake!
My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,
Heaven's last, best gift, my ever-new delight."
YE delicate! who nothing can support,
(Yourselves most insupportable,) for whom
The winter rose must blow, and silky soft
Favonius breathe still softer, or be chid.
PHILLIPS, Pomona's bard, the second thou Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse, With British freedom, sing the British song.
BEAR me, Pomona, to thy citron groves,
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange, glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined
Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes,
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
POMONA loves the orchard,
And Liber loves the vine,
And Pales loves the straw-built shed
Warm with the breath of kine;
And Venus loves the whisper
Of plighted youth and maid,
In April's ivory moonlight,
Beneath the chestnut shade.
As now triumphant to their native shore,
Through the wide deep, the joyful navy bore,
Before the fleet, to catch the heroes' view,
A floating isle the fair enchantress threw.
Soon as the floating verdure caught their sight,
She fixed, unmoved, the island of delight.
So when, in childbirth of her Jove-sprung load,
The sylvan goddess and the bowyer god,
In friendly pity of Latona's woes,
Amid the waves the Delian isle arose.
And now led smoothly o'er the furrowed tide, Right to the Isle of Love the vessels glide.
The bay they enter, where, on every hand, Around them clasps the flower-enamelled land.
A thousand boughs aloft to heaven display
Their fragrant apples shining to the day;
The orange here perfumes the buxom air,
And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair;
Near to the ground each spreading bough descends,
Beneath her yellow load the citron bends;
Between the clustering leaves of lucid green,
The apple's ripe vermilion blush is seen.
For here each gift Pomona's hand bestows
In cultured garden, free, uncultured grows,
The flavor sweeter, and the hue more fair,
Than e'er was fostered by the hand of care.
The cherry here in shining crimson glows,
And, stained with lovers' blood, in pendent rows,
The bending boughs the mulberries o'erload;
The bending boughs, caressed by Zephyr, nod.
Wild forest trees the mountain's sides arrayed
With curling foliage and romantic shade.
Here spreads the poplar, to Alcides dear,
And dear to Phoebus, ever verdant here,
The laurel joins the bowers forever green,
The myrtle bowers beloved by beauty's queen.
To Jove the oak his wide-spread branches rears,
And high to heaven the fragrant cedar bears.
Where through the glades appear the caverned rocks,
The lofty pine tree waves her sable locks.
Sacred to Cybele, the whispering pine
Loves the wild grottoes where the white cliffs shine.
Here towers the cypress, preacher to the wise;
Lessening from earth her spiral honors rise,
Till, as a spear-point reared, the topmost spray
Points to the Eden of eternal day.
A thousand flowers of gold, of white, and red,
Far o'er the shadowy vale their carpets spread,
Of fairer tapestry, and of richer bloom,
Than ever glowed in Persia's boasted loom.
Here, o'er the watery mirror's lucid bed,
Narcissus, self-enamoured, hangs the head.
And here, bedewed with love's celestial tears,
The woe-marked flower of slain Adonis rears
Its purple head, prophetic of the reign
When lost Adonis shall revive again.
The hyacinth bewrays the doleful Ai,
And calls the tribute of Apollo's sigh ;
Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains
The lovely blue that dyed the stripling's veins.
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