Earth with a sigh awakes; and tremors play,
Coy in her leafy trees, and falt'ring creep
Across the daisy lawn and whisper, "Well-a-day,"
Soft, low and sweet.
From violet-banks the scent-clouds float away
And spread around their fragrance, as of sleep:
From ev'ry mossy nook the blossoms peep;
From ev'ry blossom comes one little ray
That makes the world-wealth one with Spring, alway
Soft, low and sweet.
Maui Victor
Unhewn in quarry lay the Parian stone,
Ere hands, god-guided, of Praxiteles
Might shape the Cnidian Venus. Long ungrown
The ivory was which, chiselled, robbed of ease
Pygmalion, sculptor-lover. Now are these,
The stone and ivory, immortal made.
The golden apples of Hesperides
Shall never, scattered, in blown dust be laid,
Till Time, the dragon-guard, has lived his last decade.
The Cnidian Venus, Galatea's shape,
A wondering world beheld, as we behold, --
Here, in blest isles beyond the stormy Cape,
Where man the new land dowers with the old,
Are neither marble shapes nor fruits of gold,
Nor white-limbed maidens, queened enchantress-wise;
Here, Nature's beauties no vast ruins enfold,
No glamour fills her such as 'wildering lies
Where Mediterranean waters laugh to Grecian skies.
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