Arethusa.

1.     Arethusa arose     From her couch of snows     In the Acroceraunian mountains, -     From cloud and from crag,     With many a jag,     Shepherding her bright fountains.     She leapt down the rocks,     With her rainbow locks     Streaming among the streams; -     Her steps paved with green     The downward ravine     Which slopes to the western gleams;     And gliding and springing     She went, ever singing,     In murmurs as soft as sleep;     The Earth seemed to love her,     And Heaven smiled above her,     As she lingered towards the deep.     2.     Then Alpheus bold,     On his glacier cold,     With his trident the mountains strook;     And opened a chasm     In the rocks - with the spasm     All Erymanthus shook.     And the black south wind     It unsealed behind     The urns of the silent snow,     And earthquake and thunder     Did rend in sunder     The bars of the springs below.     And the beard and the hair     Of the River-god were     Seen through the torrent's sweep,     As he followed the light     Of the fleet nymph's flight     To the brink of the Dorian deep.     3.     'Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!     And bid the deep hide me,     For he grasps me now by the hair!'     The loud Ocean heard,     To its blue depth stirred,     And divided at her prayer;     And under the water     The Earth's white daughter     Fled like a sunny beam;     Behind her descended     Her billows, unblended     With the brackish Dorian stream: -     Like a gloomy stain     On the emerald main     Alpheus rushed behind, -     As an eagle pursuing     A dove to its ruin     Down the streams of the cloudy wind.     4.     Under the bowers     Where the Ocean Powers     Sit on their pearled thrones;     Through the coral woods     Of the weltering floods,     Over heaps of unvalued stones;     Through the dim beams     Which amid the streams     Weave a network of coloured light;     And under the caves,     Where the shadowy waves     Are as green as the forest's night: -     Outspeeding the shark,     And the sword-fish dark,     Under the Ocean's foam,     And up through the rifts     Of the mountain clifts     They passed to their Dorian home.     5.     And now from their fountains     In Enna's mountains,     Down one vale where the morning basks,     Like friends once parted     Grown single-hearted,     They ply their watery tasks.     At sunrise they leap     From their cradles steep     In the cave of the shelving hill;     At noontide they flow     Through the woods below     And the meadows of asphodel;     And at night they sleep     In the rocking deep     Beneath the Ortygian shore; -     Like spirits that lie     In the azure sky     When they love but live no more.