As, on a morn, a traveller might emerge
From the deep green seclusion of the hills,
By a cool road through forest and through fern,
Little frequented, winding, followed long
With joyous expectation and day-dreams, 5
And on a sudden, turning a great rock
Covered with frondage, dark with dripping water,
Behold the seaboard full of surf and sound,
With all the space and glory of the world
Above the burnished silver of the sea,—­ 10

Even so it was upon that first spring day
When time, that is a devious path for men,
Led me all lonely to thy door at last;
And all thy splendid beauty, gracious and glad,
(Glad as bright colour, free as wind or air, 15
And lovelier than racing seas of foam)
Bore sense and soul and mind at once away
To a pure region where the gods might dwell,
Making of me, a vagrant child before,
A servant of joy at Aphrodite’s will. 20

LXXXIX

Where shall I look for thee,
Where find thee now,
O my lost Atthis?

Storm bars the harbour,
And snow keeps the pass 5
In the blue mountains.

Bitter the wind whistles,
Pale is the sun,
And the days shorten.

Close to the hearthstone, 10
With long thoughts of thee,
Thy lonely lover

Sits now, remembering
All the spent hours
And thy fair beauty. 15

Ah, when the hyacinth
Wakens with spring,
And buds the laurel,

Doubt not, some morning
When all earth revives, 20
Hearing Pan’s flute-call

Over the river-beds,
Over the hills,
Sounding the summons,

I shall look up and behold 25
In the door,
Smiling, expectant,

Loving as ever
And glad as of old,
My own lost Atthis! 30

XC

A sad, sad face, and saddest eyes that ever
  Beheld the sun,
Whence came the grief that makes of all thy beauty
  One sad sweet smile?

In this bright portrait, where the painter fixed them, 5
  I still behold
The eyes that gladdened, and the lips that loved me,
  And, gold on rose,

The cloud of hair that settles on one shoulder
  Slipped from its vest. 10
I almost hear thy Mitylenean love-song
  In the spring night,

When the still air was odorous with blossoms,
  And in the hour
Thy first wild girl’s-love trembled into being, 15
  Glad, glad and fond.