The Hamadryad
RHAICOS was born amid the hills wherefrom
Gnidos the light of Caria is discern’d
And small are the white-crested that play near,
And smaller onward are the purple waves.
Thence festal choirs were visible, all crown’d
With rose and myrtle if they were inborn;
If from Pandion sprang they, on the coast
Where stern Athenè rais’d her citadel,
Then olive was entwin’d with violets
Cluster’d in bosses, regular and large;
For various men wore various coronals,
But one was their devotion; ’t was to her
Whose laws all follow, her whose smile withdraws
The sword from Ares, thunderbolt from Zeus,
And whom in his chill caves the mutable
Of mind, Poseidon, the sea-king, reveres,
And whom his brother, stubborn Dis, hath pray’d
To turn in pity the averted cheek
Of her he bore away, with promises,
Nay, with loud oath before dread Styx itself,
To give her daily more and sweeter flowers
Than he made drop from her on Enna’s dell.
Rhaicos was looking from his father’s door
At the long trains that hasten’d to the town
From all the valleys, like bright rivulets
Gurgling with gladness, wave outrunning wave,
And thought it hard he might not also go
And offer up one prayer, and press one hand,
He knew not whose. The father call’d him in
And said, “Son Rhaicos! those are idle games;
Long enough I have liv’d to find them so.”
And ere he ended, sigh’d; as old men do
Always, to think how idle such games are.
“I have not yet,” thought Rhaicos in his heart,
And wanted proof.
“Suppose thou go and help
Echion at the hill, to bark yon oak
And lop its branches off, before we delve
About the trunk and ply the root with axe:
This we may do in winter.”
Rhaicos went;
For thence he could see farther, and see more
Of those who hurried to the city-gate.
Echion he found there, with naked arm
Swart-hair’d, strong-sinew’d, and his eyes intent
Upon the place where first the axe should fall:
He held it upright. “There are bees about,
Or wasps, or hornets,” said the cautious eld,
“Look sharp, O son of Thallinos!” The youth
Inclin’d his ear, afar, and warily,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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