TO A GREEK GIRL. 177 TO A GREEK GIRL. WITH breath of thyme and bees that hum, WITH Across the years you seem to come,— Where'er you pass,-where'er you go, Not wholly dead !—Autonoë! How sweet with you on some green sod N To watch across the stricken chords In vain,-in vain! The years divide: From under-lands of Memory, A dream of Form in days of Thought,— A dream,-a dream, Autonoë! THE DEATH OF PROCRIS. 179 THE DEATH OF PROCRIS. A VERSION SUGGESTED BY THE SO-NAMED PICTURE OF PIERO DI COSIMO, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY. PROCRI ROCRIS, the nymph, had wedded Cephalus :-He, till the spring had warmed to slow-winged days Heavy with June, untired and amorous, Named her his love; but now, in unknown ways, His heart was gone; and evermore his gaze Turned from her own, and ever farther ranged His woodland war; while she, in dull amaze, Beholding with the hours her husband changed, Sighed for his lost caress, by some hard god estranged. So, on a day, she rose and found him not. Down to the trackless wood, full pale and overcast. And all day long her slight spear devious flew, Before her ran the still unwounded game. Thinking, "I yet may chance unseen to see his face." Leaping he went, this hunter Cephalus, Bent in his hand his cornel bow he bare, But Procris lay among the white wind-flowers, To lie beside the sea,-with many an uncouth tear. THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE TO CIRCE. 181 THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE TO CIRCE. H UDDLING they came, with shag sides caked of mire, With hoofs fresh sullied from the troughs o'er turned, With wrinkling snouts,-yet eyes in which desire Of some strange thing unutterably burned, Unquenchable; and still where'er She turned They rose about her, striving each o'er each, With restless, fierce impórtuning that yearned Through those brute masks some piteous tale to teach, Yet lacked the words thereto, denied the power of speech. For these Eurylochus alone escaping In truth, that small exploring band had been, Had sent inland ;-whom then the islet-Queen,- Had turned to likeness of the beast unclean, To shapes of loathly swine, imbruted and undone. |