| |
| “’T WAS evening, though not sunset, and the tide, | |
| Level with these green meadows, seem’d yet higher: | |
| ’T was pleasant, and I loosen’d from my neck | |
| The pipe you gave me, and began to play. | |
| O that I ne’er had learn’d the tuneful art! | 5 |
| It always brings us enemies or love. | |
| Well, I was playing, when above the waves | |
| Some swimmer’s head methought I saw ascend; | |
| I, sitting still, survey’d it with my pipe | |
| Awkwardly held before my lips half-clos’d. | 10 |
| Gebir! it was a Nymph! a Nymph divine! | |
| I cannot wait describing how she came, | |
| How I was sitting, how she first assum’d | |
| The sailor; of what happen’d there remains | |
| Enough to say, and too much to forget. | 15 |
| The sweet deceiver stepp’d upon this bank | |
| Before I was aware; for with surprise | |
| Moments fly rapid as with love itself. | |
| Stooping to tune afresh the hoarsen’d reed, | |
| I heard a rustling, and where that arose | 20 |
| My glance first lighted on her nimble feet. | |
| Her feet resembled those long shells explor’d | |
| By him who to befriend his steed’s dim sight | |
| Would blow the pungent powder in the eye. | |
| Her eyes too! O immortal gods! her eyes | 25 |
| Resembled—what could they resemble? what | |
| Ever resemble those? Even her attire | |
| Was not of wonted woof nor vulgar art: | |
| Her mantle show’d the yellow samphire-pod, | |
| Her girdle the dove-color’d wave serene. | 30 |
| ‘Shepherd,’ said she, ‘and will you wrestle now | |
| And with the sailor’s hardier race engage?’ | |
| I was rejoiced to hear it, and contriv’d | |
| How to keep up contention: could I fail | |
| By pressing not too strongly, yet to press? | 35 |
| ‘Whether a shepherd, as indeed you seem, | |
| Or whether of the hardier race you boast, | |
| I am not daunted; no; I will engage.’ | |
| ‘But first,’ said she, ‘what wager will you lay?’ | |
| ‘A sheep,’ I answered: ‘add whate’er you will.’ | 40 |
| ‘I cannot,’ she replied, ‘make that return: | |
| Our hided vessels in their pitchy round | |
| Seldom, unless from rapine, hold a sheep. | |
| But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue | |
| Within, and they that lustre have imbib’d | 45 |
| In the sun’s palace-porch, where when unyok’d | |
| His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave: | |
| Shake one and it awakens, then apply | |
| Its polish’d lips to your attentive ear, | |
| And it remembers its august abodes, | 50 |
| And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. | |
| And I have others given me by the nymphs, | |
| Of sweeter sound than any pipe you have: | |
| But we, by Neptune! for no pipe contend; | |
| This time a sheep I win, a pipe the next.’ | 55 |
| Now came she forward eager to engage, | |
| But first her dress, her bosom then survey’d | |
| And heav’d it, doubting if she could deceive. | |
| Her bosom seem’d, inclos’d in haze like heaven, | |
| To baffle touch, and rose forth undefin’d; | 60 |
| Above her knee she drew the robe succinct, | |
| Above her breast, and just below her arms. | |
| ‘This will preserve my breath when tightly bound, | |
| If struggle and equal strength should so constrain.’ | |
| Thus, pulling hard to fasten it, she spake, | 65 |
| And, rushing at me, clos’d: I thrill’d throughout | |
| And seem’d to lessen and shrink up with cold. | |
| Again with violent impulse gush’d my blood, | |
| And hearing nought external, thus absorb’d, | |
| I heard it, rushing through each turbid vein, | 70 |
| Shake my unsteady swimming sight in air. | |
| Yet with unyielding though uncertain arms | |
| I clung around her neck; the vest beneath | |
| Rustled against our slippery limbs entwin’d: | |
| Often mine springing with eluded force | 75 |
| Started aside and trembled till replaced: | |
| And when I most succeeded, as I thought, | |
| My bosom and my throat felt so compress’d | |
| That life was almost quivering on my lips. | |
| Yet nothing was there painful: these are signs | 80 |
| Of secret arts and not of human might; | |
| What arts I cannot tell; I only know | |
| My eyes grew dizzy and my strength decay’d; | |
| I was indeed o’ercome—with what regret, | |
| And more, with what confusion, when I reach’d | 85 |
| The fold, and yielding up the sheep, she cried, | |
| ‘This pays a shepherd to a conquering maid.’ | |
| She smil’d, and more of pleasure than disdain | |
| Was in her dimpled chin and liberal lip, | |
| And eyes that languish’d, lengthening, just like love. | 90 |
| She went away; I on the wicker gate | |
| Leant, and could follow with my eyes alone | |
| The sheep she carried easy as a cloak; | |
| But when I heard its bleating, as I did, | |
| And saw, she hastening on, its hinder feet | 95 |
| Struggle, and from her snowy shoulder slip, | |
| One shoulder its poor efforts had unveil’d, | |
| Then all my passions mingling fell in tears; | |
| Restless then ran I to the highest ground | |
| To watch her; she was gone; gone down the tide; | 100 |
| And the long moonbeam on the hard wet sand | |
| Lay like a jasper column half uprear’d.” | |
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