Orpheus and Eurydice I

Height over height, the purple pine-woods clung to the rich Arcadianmountains,Holy-sweet as a sea of incense, under the low dark crimson skies:Glad were the glens where Eurydice bathed, in the beauty of dawn, at thehaunted fountainsDeep in the blue hyacinthine hollows, whence all the rivers ofArcady rise.

Long ago, ah, white as the Huntress, cold and sweet as the petals thatcrowned her,Fair and fleet as the fawn that shakes the dew from the fern atbreak of day,Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-brightglory around her,Down to the valley her light feet stole, ah, soft as the budding offlowers in May.

Down to the valley she came, for far and far below in thedreaming meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by hergolden name;So she arose from her home in the hills, and down through the blossomsthat danced with their shadows,Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, down to the heart of herlover she came.

Red were the lips that hovered above her lips in the flowery haze of theJune-day:Red as a rose through the perfumed mist of passion that reeled beforeher eyes;Strong the smooth young sunburnt arms that folded her heart to his heartin the noon-day,Strong and supple with throbbing sunshine under the blindingsouthern skies.

Ah, the kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain for theirphantom fleetness,Mad with pain for the passing of love that lives, theydreamed--as we dream--for an hour!Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with pain, for itsover-sweetness,As petal by petal and pang by pang their love broke out intoperfect flower.