DUBLIN:

PRINTED BY PORTEOUS AND GIBBS,

WICKLOW STREET.

Actaeon.

(SIC ILLUM FATA FEREBANT.*)

T was on the mount Cithaeron, in the pale and misty morn, That the hero, young Actaeon, sounded the hunter's horn. Princeliest of pursuers of the flying roe was he,

Son of great Aristaeus and Theban Autonoë.

Oaklike in massy stature, and carriage of kingly limb,

Lo the broad, brave grace, and the fleet, fine might of manhood's fair prime in him,

Grandly brow'd as a sea-cliff with the curling waves at its base, And its storm-haunted crest a tangle of deep, ripe weeds and grass.

And many an Arcadian maiden thought not of a maiden's pride, But look'd on the youth with longing, and watch'd as he went, and sigh'd.

And Aegle had proffer'd a jewel that a queen might carefully keep,

For a favouring smile of the hunter, and a touch of his beardless lip;

But never on dame or damsel had his falcon glance made stay, And he turn'd from the love-sick Aegle, and toss'd her gifts away.

For where was so soft a bower, or where so goodly a hall, As the dell where the echoes listen'd to the noise of the waterfall? And where was there cheek of woman as lovely to soul and sense As the gracious hues of the woodlands in depths of the stately glens?

And where were there eyes or tresses as gloriously dark or bright, As the flood of the wild Alpheus as it pour'd from the lonely height?

Ovid, Metamorphoses, III., 176.

So the hero, young Actaeon, fled far from the girl-fill'd house, To rove with the beamy spearshaft through the budded forest boughs.

And sweeter than smiles of Aegle or sheen of her rippling hair, Were the heads of his great hounds fawning, or snuffing the morning air;

And to tread by the precipices that down from his feet shore clean;

And to mark where the dappled leopard was couch'd in the long ravine;

And to look on the eagle wheeling up peakward, and hear him

scream;

And to plant strong steps in the meadow, and plash through the babbling stream;

And to hurl the spear in the thicket, and draw the bow in the glade,

And to rush on the foaming fury of the boar by the dogs embayed;

And ever in midland valley to smell the leaves and the grass,
Or the brine-scent blown o'er the headlands high up to the bare
hill-pass,

Where lovelier far than Aegle, or her eyes' bright witchery,
Was Morning, born of the marriage of silent Sky and Sea.

So the hunter, young Actacon, to the mount Cithaeron came, And blew his horn, in the dank white morn, to startle the sleeping game;

Nor thought, as the pealing echoes were clatter'd from crag to

crag,

That Fate on his trace held him in chase, as a huge hound holds a stag.

By rock and by rift and runnel, by marsh, and meadow, and mound,

He went with his dogs beside him, and marvell'd no game was found.

Till the length of the whole green gorge, and the grey cliffs gleaming on high,

Rang and re-echoed with horns, and the musical hunting cry. And the hounds broke out of the cover, all baying together in tune;

And the hart sprang panting before them along up the lawns dew-strewn.

And a bevy of buskin'd virgins, dove-breasted, broke from the bowers,

With spears half-poised for the hurling, and tresses tangled with flowers:

Their lips, rose-ruddy, disparted to draw their delightsome breath For the chase, and the cheer thereof ringing the rapture of dealing death

The fine heads eagerly lifted, the pitiless fair eyes fix'd;

The cheeks, flower-fresh, flush'd flower-like,-rich lily, rich rose commix'd;

The slender feet flying swiftly, the slight shapes rushing like reeds,

When the Thracian breezes of winter descend on the marshy meads;

swept they along like music; and wilder'd Actaeon stood, Till the last of the maiden rangers was lost in the leaning wood.

As a Bacchanal starts from slumber, on snowy ridges remote, To see o'er the peaks and gorges the silvery moonbeams float, So the soul of the youth was smitten with wildest wonder through; And a deadly tremor of madness through his quivering members

flew ;

And a joy that was almost anguish took hold of his breast and brain,

And he nothing on earth regarded but to see the nymphs again; Though the scorn of their arrowy glances should slay him a thousand ways,

He would die by their merciless sweetness with an open, adoring

gaze.

And she, Diana, their leader, the queen of the greenwood glade, The goddess of stainless maidens, herself a stainless maid; Fair sister of sunbright Apollo, they twain being born at a birth, Gold-hair'd children of Jove supreme, and lovers and lighteners of earth;

Phoebe, maiden majestical, sovereign lady most high;

Moon, more lovely, more chaste, than all the stars of the sky; Cold as the dew on a flower, and pure as the wings of a dove; Divine-the rival of Venus, and more victorious than Love; Ruler of mightiest waters, and couch'd in them night by night, And soul of the sunless heaven, laving the world with light; And edging the clouds and mountains with splendour, and tipping the trees,

And flying o'er lake and river with brighter feet than the breeze ; And at morn with kirtle and quiver a huntress by field and wood, The swift overtaker, the certain smiter of hart and of pard

pursued ;

Hater of wantons, and shunner of sloth, and fleër of revels and feasts,

And scorner of man through the brutish in man, and lancebearing slayer of beasts;

Enamour'd of all the freshness that the lonely hills immure, And Queen of Honor, and Patroness pray'd to of women pure; Modest maidenliness made perfect, immortal in virgin grace, The young Actaeon would see her, and die beholding her face.

So the hunter wander'd hapless, not caring to lift the spear, But found not the racing maidens, nor heard in the woods their cheer;

And weary at last of seeking, he cast him adown to sleep, Where join'd a wood and a meadow in greenness heavy and deep

Of the water'd Gargaphian valleys, that spread in the noonday heat

A welcome shelter for sun-scorch'd eyes, a rest for far-travell'd feet.