He tries the nerve of Phœbus' golden bow,
And asketh where the golden apples grow:
Upon his arm he braces Pallas' shield,
And strives in vain to unsettle and wield
A Jovian thunderbolt: arch Hebe brings
A full-brimm'd goblet, dances lightly, sings
And tantalizes long; at last he drinks,
And lost in pleasure, at her feet he sinks,
Touching with dazzled lips her starlight
hand.
He blows a bugle,
an ethereal band
Are visible above: the Seasons four, —
Green-kirtled Spring, flush Summer, golden

store

420

490

At random flies; they are the proper home
Of every ill: the man is yet to come
Who hath not journey'd in this native hell.
But few have ever felt how calm and well
Sleep may be had in that deep den of all.
There anguish does not sting, nor pleasure
pall;

Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate,
Yet all is still within and desolate.
Beset with painful gusts, within ye hear 529
No sound so loud as when on curtain'd bier
The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none
Who strive therefore: on the sudden it is

won.

Just when the sufferer begins to burn, Then it is free to him; and from an urn,

Still fed by melting ice, he takes a draught —

Young Semele such richness never quaff'd In her maternal longing. Happy gloom! Dark Paradise! where pale becomes the bloom

Of health by due; where silence dreariest Is most articulate; where hopes infest; 540 Where those eyes are the brightest far that keep

Their lids shut longest in a dreamless sleep. O happy spirit-home! O wondrous soul ! Pregnant with such a den to save the whole In thine own depth. Hail, gentle Carian! For, never since thy griefs and woes began, Hast thou felt so content: a grievous feud Hath led thee to this Cave of Quietude. Aye, his lull'd soul was there, although upborne

With dangerous speed: and so he did not

Crystalline brother of the belt of heaven, Aquarius! to whom king Jove has given Two liquid pulse streams 'stead of feather'd wings,

Two fanlike fountains, — thine illuminings
For Dian play:

Dissolve the frozen purity of air;
Let thy white shoulders silvery and bare
Show cold through watery pinions; make
more bright

The Star-Queen's crescent on her marriage night:

Haste, haste away!
Castor has tamed the planet Lion, see!
And of the Bear has Pollux mastery:
A third is in the race! who is the third,
Speeding away swift as the eagle bird?
The ramping Centaur!

590

all good

700

And to god Phoebus, for a golden lyre;
To Empress Dian, for a hunting-spear;
To Vesper, for a taper silver-clear,
That I may see thy beauty through the
night;

To Flora, and a nightingale shall light
Tame on thy finger; to the River-gods,
And they shall bring thee taper fishing-
rods