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(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
EGERIA! sweet creation of some heart | |
| Which found no mortal resting-place so fair | |
| As thine ideal breast; whate’er thou art | |
| Or wert,—a young Aurora of the air, | |
| The nympholepsy of some fond despair; | 5 |
| Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, | |
| Who found a more than common votary there | |
| Too much adoring,—whatsoe’er thy birth, | |
| Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. | |
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| The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled | 10 |
| With thine Elysian water-drops: the face | |
| Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, | |
| Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, | |
| Whose green, wild margin now no more erase | |
| Art’s works; nor must the delicate waters sleep, | 15 |
| Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base | |
| Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap | |
| The rill runs o’er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep, | |
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| Fantastically tangled; the green hills | |
| Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass | 20 |
| The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills | |
| Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass; | |
| Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, | |
| Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes | |
| Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; | 25 |
| The sweetness of the violet’s deep blue eyes, | |
| Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems colored by its skies. | |
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| Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, | |
| Egeria! thy all-heavenly bosom beating | |
| For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover; | 30 |
| The purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting | |
| With her most starry canopy, and, seating | |
| Thyself by thine adorer, what befell? | |
| This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting | |
| Of an enamored goddess, and the cell | 35 |
| Haunted by holy love,—the earliest oracle! | |
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