Such age, how beautiful!  O Lady bright,
  Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined
  By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind
  To something purer and more exquisite
  Than flesh and blood; whene’er thou meet’est my sight, 5
  When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek,
  Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white,
  And head that droops because the soul is meek,
  Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare;
  That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb 10
  From desolation toward the genial prime;
  Or with the Moon conquering earth’s misty air,
  And filling more and more with crystal light
  As pensive Evening deepens into night.

TENNYSON

OENONE

  There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
  Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
  The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
  Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine
  And loiters, slowly drawn.  On either hand 5
  The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
  Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
  The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine
  In cataract after cataract to the sea. 
  Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 10
  Stands up and takes the morning:  but in front
  The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
  Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,
  The crown of Troas.

  Hither came at noon
  Mournful Oenone, wandering forlorn 15
  Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. 
  Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
  Floated her hair or seem’d to float in rest. 
  She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
  Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade 20
  Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff

  “O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,
  Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
  For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: 
  The grasshopper is silent in the grass:  25
  The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
  Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead
  The purple flower droops:  the golden bee
  Is lily-cradled:  I alone awake. 
  My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, 30
  My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
  And I am all aweary of my life.

  “O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,
  Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
  Hear me, O Earth; hear me, O Hills, O Caves 35
  That house the cold crowned snake!  O mountain brooks,
  I am the daughter of a River-God,
  Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
  My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
  Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 40
  A cloud that gather’d shape:  for it may be
  That, while I speak of it, a little while
  My heart may wander from its deeper woe.