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| I NEVER prayed for Dryads, to haunt the woods again; | |
| More welcome were the presence of hungering, thirsting men, | |
| Whose doubts we could unravel, whose hopes we could fulfil, | |
| Our wisdom tracing backward, the river to the rill; | |
| Were such beloved forerunners one summer day restored, | 5 |
| Then, then we might discover the Muse’s mystic hoard. | |
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| Oh, dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I | |
| Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie; | |
| Where trees from distant forests, whose names were strange to thee, | |
| Should bend their amorous branches within thy reach to be, | 10 |
| And flowers thine Hellas knew not, which art hath made more fair, | |
| Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant hair. | |
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| Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing looks | |
| To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books, | |
| And wonder at the daring of poets later born, | 15 |
| Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noon-tide is to morn; | |
| And little shouldst thou grudge them their greater strength of soul, | |
| Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the goal. | |
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| As when ancestral portraits look gravely from the walls | |
| Upon the youthful baron who treads their echoing halls; | 20 |
| And whilst he builds new turrets, the thrice ennobled heir | |
| Would gladly wake his grandsire his home and feast to share; | |
| So from Ægean laurels that hide thine ancient urn | |
| I fain would call thee hither, my sweeter lore to learn. | |
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| Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee: | 25 |
| Ah, leave that simple honey, and take thy food from me! | |
| My sun is stooping westward. Entrancèd dreamer, haste: | |
| There ’s fruitage in my garden, that I would have thee taste. | |
| Now lift the lid a moment: now, Dorian shepherd, speak: | |
| Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek. | 30 |
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