Rhododaphne; a Poem

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1818 edition. Excerpt: ... RHODODAPHNE. CANTO III. By living streams, in sylvan shades, Where winds and waves symphonious make Sweet melody, the youths and maids No more with choral music wake Lone Echo from her tangled brake, On Pan, or Sylvan Genius, calling, Naiad or Nymph, in suppliant song: No more by living fountain, falling The poplar's circling bower among, Where pious hands have carved of yore Rude bason for its lucid store And reared the grassy altar nigh, The traveller, when the sun rides high, For cool refreshment lingering there, Pours to the Sister Nyniphs his prayer. Yet still the green vales smile: the springs Gush forth in light: the forest weaves Its own wild bowers; the breeze's wings Make music in their rustling leaves; But 'tis no spirit's breath that sighs Among their tangled canopies: In ocean's caves no Nereid dwells: No Oread walks the mountain-dells: The streams no sedge-crowned Genii roll From bounteous urn: great Pan is dead: The life, the intellectual soul Of vale, and grove, and stream, has fled For ever with the creed sublime That nursed the Muse of earlier time. The broad moon rose o'er Thespia's walls, And on the light wind's swells and falls Came to Anthemion's ear the sounds Of dance, and song, and festal pleasure, As slowly tow'rds the city's bounds He turned, his backward steps to measure. But with such sounds his heart confessed No sympathy: his mind was pressed With thoughts too heavy to endure The contrast of a scene so gay; And from the walls he turned away, To where, in distant moonlight pure, Mount Helicon's conspicuous height Rose in the dark-blue vault of night. Along the solitary road Alone he went; for who but he On that fair night would absent be From Thespia's joyous revelry? The sounds that on the soft air flowed...