Viii

A noise of the hollow ground Turned the eye to the ear in debate: Not the soft overflowing of sound Of the pines, ranked, lofty, straight, Barely swayed to some whispers remote, Some swarming whispers above: Not the pines with the faint airs afloat, Hush-hushing the nested dove: It was not the pines, or the rout Oft heard from mid-forest in chase, But the long muffled roar of a shout Subterranean. Sharp grew her face. She rose, yet not moved by affright; ’Twas rather good haste to use Her holiday of delight In the beams of the God of the Muse. And the steeps of the forest she crossed, On its dry red sheddings and cones Up the paths by roots green-mossed, Spotted amber, and old mossed stones. Then out where the brook-torrent starts To her leap, and from bend to curve A hurrying elbow darts For the instant-glancing swerve, Decisive, with violent will In the action formed, like hers, The maiden’s, ascending; and still Ascending, the bud of the furze, The broom, and all blue-berried shoots Of stubborn and prickly kind, The juniper flat on its roots, The dwarf rhododaphne, behind She left, and the mountain sheep Far behind, goat, herbage and flower. The island was hers, and the deep, All heaven, a golden hour. Then with wonderful voice, that rang Through air as the swan’s nigh death, Of the glory of Light she sang, She sang of the rapture of Breath. Nor ever, says he who heard, Heard Earth in her boundaries broad, From bosom of singer or bird A sweetness thus rich of the God Whose harmonies always are sane. She sang of furrow and seed, The burial, birth of the grain, The growth, and the showers that feed, And the green blades waxing mature For the husbandman’s armful brown. O, the song in its burden ran pure, And burden to song was a crown. Callistes, a singer, skilled In the gift he could measure and praise, By a rival’s art was thrilled, Though she sang but a Song of Days, Where the husbandman’s toil and strife Little varies to strife and toil: But the milky kernel of life, With her numbered: corn, wine, fruit, oil The song did give him to eat: Gave the first rapt vision of Good, And the fresh young sense of Sweet The grace of the battle for food, With the issue Earth cannot refuse When men to their labour are sworn. ’Twas a song of the God of the Muse To the forehead of Morn.