Elegiac II.

written by


« Reload image

Trunks the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing,
  Boughs with apples laden beautiful, Hesperian,
Golden, odoriferous, perfume exhaling about them,
  Orbs in a dark umbrage luminous and radiant;
To the palate grateful, more luscious were not in Eden,
  Or in that fabled garden of Alcinoüs; Out of a dark umbrage sounds also musical issued,
  Birds their sweet transports uttering in melody
Thrushes clear piping, wood-pigeons cooing, arousing
  Loudly the nightingale, loudly the sylvan echoes;
Waters transpicuous flowed under, flowed to the list’ning
  Ear with a soft murmur, softly soporiferous;
Nor, with ebon locks too, there wanted, circling, attentive
  Unto the sweet fluting, girls, of a swarthy shepherd;
Over a sunny level their flocks are lazily feeding,
  They of Amor musing rest in a leafy cavern.

© Arthur Hugh Clough