12
Orion.
[Book I.
With placid silver; edging leaf and trunk
Where gloom clung deep around; but chiefly sought
With melancholy splendour to illume
The dark-mouthed caverns where Orion lay
Dreaming among his kinsmen. Ere the breath
Of Phoibos' steeds rose from the wakening sea,
And long before the immortal wheel-spokes cast
Their hazy apparition up the sky
Behind the mountain peaks, pale Artemis left
Her fainting orb, and touched the loftiest snows
With feet as pure, and white, and crystal cold,
In the sweet misty woodland to rejoin
Orion with her Nymphs. And he was blest
In her divine smile, and his life began
A new and higher period, nor the haunts
Of those his giant brethren ever sought,
But shunned them and their ways, and slept alone
Upon a verdant rock, while o'er him floated
The clear moon, causing music in his brain
Until the sky-lark rose. He felt 't was love.
Where gloom clung deep around; but chiefly sought
With melancholy splendour to illume
The dark-mouthed caverns where Orion lay
Dreaming among his kinsmen. Ere the breath
Of Phoibos' steeds rose from the wakening sea,
And long before the immortal wheel-spokes cast
Their hazy apparition up the sky
Behind the mountain peaks, pale Artemis left
Her fainting orb, and touched the loftiest snows
With feet as pure, and white, and crystal cold,
In the sweet misty woodland to rejoin
Orion with her Nymphs. And he was blest
In her divine smile, and his life began
A new and higher period, nor the haunts
Of those his giant brethren ever sought,
But shunned them and their ways, and slept alone
Upon a verdant rock, while o'er him floated
The clear moon, causing music in his brain
Until the sky-lark rose. He felt 't was love.
