A DIM rich leafy covert! musical
With hum of bees and waters' gurgling sound,
And those more low and stilly melodies,
That are the breathings of a life unseen,
Voices of solitude that lull the heart
To quiet and to sweet forgetfulness.

Hark! 'tis the mellow note of Dian's horn!
The chase is done, the huntresses dispersed,
Each resting in her woodland's wild recess.
A quick light footstep bounds along the grass;
The fawn springs forth, the bird flees from its spray;
The waving branches yield before the form
Of Arethusa entering her home.

She threw herself upon the bank, beneath
The shadowing willow that o'erhung the stream.
Her bow and glittering shafts o'erspread the turf,
Her head against a bough reclined, her neck
Gleamed whiter from the shadow of the trees,
Her parted lips drank in the breathing air.
Spent with fatigue, her arms hung listlessly:
Like a pale statue in eternal rest
She looked; mute, marble, cold, and motionless,
Waiting the spark of life's enkindling flame.
Unheeded was the beauty round her spread,
That wooed her, its receptacle and shrine: —
The green sward starry with pale primroses,
The blue veronica that matched her eyes,
And the clematis rivalling her hair;
The rose that stole its hue from her blanched cheek.
The golden crocus glorified the ground:
And hyacinth and branching asphodel
Drooped gracefully o'er her head. Her foot reposed
On wild thyme tufted thick with marjoram,
Breathing delicious odours; all unfelt
By her whose violet fringing eyelids closed,
Abandoned to the quietude.
Sunlight,
Lustrous, shed greener glory through the leaves,
Dimpling the rippled stream, while weaving on
The scaly rinds of the o'erhanging trunks
Network of light and shadow; mottled vest
In wavy motion, picturing to the eye
A silent harmony.
Fire-flies pendant hung
Amidst the levelled rays poised motionless,
Lightning-like thrilling their invisible wings;
Vanishing, reappearing amid groups
Of insects living in that gracious light,
Borne to and fro on air.
Then slowly heard
The murmuring voices of Alpheus' stream,
Distant and lulling, stole upon her ear,
Mingling dream-like with sense; his voice was deep,
But never full of melody as now.
She felt the river called her to its bed;
Listless she turned her eyes, and saw how calm.
How cold, and pure, and silently it rolled!
The dimpling ripples sparkled in the sun,
The laughter of the waters mirrored on
The ribbing sands in broken gleams of light;
The wavelets o'er, the flashing lines beneath
On hurrying to the green bank soundlessly.

She felt the quiet in her heart and eye,
And drew the golden sandals from her feet,
Loosening the zone that bound her robe beneath
Her swelling bosom; light it fell as wreath
Of mist from some lone star in azure heaven.
A moment there she stood, a form the bard,
Or dreaming sculptor, never bodied forth
From shadowy visions of the beautiful.

Then she felt conscious of the o'erlooking sky,
And drew the crescent circle from her brow.
Who knows not Arethusa's golden hair
That Dian envied? Down those tresses fell
In meshes where a sun-beam, prisoned, shed
Through them an amber light; they veiled her not,
Her beauty shone as twilight through grey clouds
Reveals its softened loveliness. She stood
Upon the crisping sand that edged the stream,
A yellow strip, that, by the deep green sward
And odorous flowers bordered, shone like gold.
She watched her self-reflection, beauty dwelling
On its fine shadow; now with shrinking fear
Retreating in herself, then, sportively
Dimpling the water with her timid foot,
She threw herself in its encircling bed.

She started from the stream, and gained the sand
Swiftly as flies to nest the bird that hears
The summer thunder. On the bank she stood
In listening fear; her head was raised, her lips
Parted, as she would drink that utterance
From earth or sky that sank within her heart.
One hand her bosom pressed, the other raised,
As though to mark the moment of her flight.
Was it the wind that murmured through the sedge,
And syllabled her name in sigh so close,
So deep and full upon her startled ear?
She turned with a quick gesture, and beheld
Her fear embodied, the fond river-god,
Divine Alpheus, gazing on her there
In passionate idolatry, as if life
Were drawn from her.

" O Arethusa, hear!"
She heard the sound, not words, nor saw where knelt
The god before her; fear was in her eyes
And ears; fawn-like she fled along the bank
Before the huntsman, but what speed outstrips
The will and motion of a god? She felt
His panting breath upon her neck in flight;
She shrieked not, for her gasping breath was lost,
But her deep invocating sob was heard
By tutelary Dian ever near.
Her feet were earth-rooted, her graceful arms
Arched, tossed on high, in flashing waters fell,
Their azure veins sky-tinctured; her raised eyes
Darted bright light amid the falling streams;
And her rich hair to wreaths of myrtle changed,
Drooped o'er the fountain as the plume that waves
Above Minerva's helm.
She mingled thus
With the pure element of waters; then,
Or whether that her inner spirit changed,
And, heavenly, yearned toward its kindred life,
Or love decreed was fate; the rivulet
That flowed from that sweet spring spread through the fields,
And with capricious, coy, and wayward will,
As if avoiding still the river-god,
Yet still approaching half reluctantly,
Yielded; and, with a low and murmuring sound,
With his embracing stream for ever joined.