Then from her leafy shade she lightly stept,
And, standing o'er him, like a love-adept

Sang

O fond singer of an hour,

If thy passing note had power

Thus to hold me; then thy heart
Surely must contain some charm
Fit to fend off Love's alarm,

Fit to heal Love's hateful smart.

Yet I perish in Love's pain,
I who once was wont to feign
Coldness of my native lake,
And for thee, who in thy pride
Love's delight hast e'er denied,
Wait imploring till thou wake.

O beware, fair singer; Sleep
All about thy limbs doth creep :

Keep afar her cunning art;
For she loves thee and will use
All her lures, until thou lose

Even unto her thy heart.

And with a sudden start, as though he heard

Among the lilacs a love-laden bird

Rehearsing human tones, Narcissus woke

Wide eyed-and saw not aught; the ripples broke

Out of a sea of light upon the shore,

And every sight and sound was as before.

For so the Gods (and who can tell their mind, Equal, unequal, seeing they can bind

Mortals, but over them is no control

Till Fate o'ertake them at the final goal)
Or justly for her penalty declared

The pain she oft for others had prepared,
Or for their own devices, or of spite-
Perchance being jealous of their proper light—
Had willed this end for Echo, that she waned
Till but the shadow of herself remained,
Which young Narcissus saw not; for he rose
And unregarding passed the fair nymph close,
And went unto the water's edge, and stood
Watching the other world within the flood.

Then Echo turned away, and in her grief,
Seeing the end too surely, sought relief
In darkness and the shadow of a grove,
Whereto she told her first last only love,
And all night long beneath the flying Moon
Made melancholy plaining. But so soon

As morning came—and with it dawn of hope— With her distressful fancies did she cope, And went to seek Narcissus. So six days She teased him in and out the woodland ways, And now would scatter roses for his bed, Relenting, now would mimic all he said, Saying Echo, Echo, in her lightest tone; And oft at midnoon, in a hollow stone, Brought icy water from a crystal well, Or lilies from some moist and shady dell. For all he knew her not, but turned aside, And evermore regarded but the glassy tide.

Then on the seventh day she saw the Fate
Throw wide for her its final gloomy gate;
And turning on itself her life down went
Through all the sharp degrees of pain's descent
To Death for Anger and great grief had sped
The end of passion, and her heart was dead.
So throwing out her arms upon the gale
She cried unto the Gods with grievous wail,
And cursed the careless lord of her desire,
And said: 'Let the same unremitting fire

C

Devour thy heart and mine: for I must die.'
And with a sharp and ominous loud sigh
Backward upon the breezes from the bank
She fled, and into the blue distance sank.

And on Narcissus fell the fair nymph's ban;
For while within the waters he did scan

Some dreamworld wonder, in that lake-born land
Dimly discerning his own image stand,

He knew it not; but deemed that some fair maid Upon the nether meadow-marge delayed,

And in love-cravings for that unattained Fanciful beauty, his own beauty waned And wasted with desire unsatisfied; Whereof at length himself had surely died, But that the Gods took pity in that hour And so transformed him to the fashion of a flower.

And now each vernal season, when the Sun
His vertical high course begins to run,

When midday Zephyrs dream beside the rill,
And the lake from an overhanging hill
Looks like the entrance of another land,
Upon its sunny bank is seen to stand

A fragrant flower whose white and golden eye
Peers at its own pale image mournfully,

And, long ere Philomel forsakes her sighs,
Pines on its slender stem and falls and dies.
And, as the changes of the world go by,
About that land ofttimes is heard a cry
Like thin and bitter laughter, wheresoe'er
Among her lonely crags and caverns bare,
Now bodiless and dwindled to a sound,

Heart-broken Echo mocks the starry night profound.