152 THE VALLEY OF THE NYMPHS. 



That worked its way through the green night to day, 



Giving their beauty to the beautiful 



Augmented with its own. Lowest of all 



A fragrant labyrinth of leaf and bloom, 



Rose and acanthus, myrtle, passion-flower, 



Cystus and laurel, tufted thick the roots 



Of the rent crags ; ivy and eglantine 



Matted the trunks and branches ; and the vine 



Traced o'er the brown rock or the cavern's mouth, 



Distilled her pendant nectar-drops, and wove 



Meet shadows for the deathless." pp. 3, 9, 10, 



We shall have something to say of the " fine horror" 

 presently, but now pass on to another picture. 



" Mid the vale 



(Feeding a deep calm stream, that wound its way 

 Through a long, high, and verdurous mountain-arch, 

 Into the world it knew not,) a sweet Lake 

 In clear and limpid silentness reposed, 

 The mirror of the mountains and the flowers 

 That fringed its solitary marge. Fair swans 

 That sang and died not, bathed or floated by, 

 Fed on the golden sedge-flowers, or reclined 

 On the soft turf that banked the lone waves round. 

 In the centre of this woodland lake, there lay 

 One bright and sacred Isle. A simple, old, 

 And Dorian temple reared its pillars ijjrey 

 On this green spot; and a fi-w .stately trees 

 Shadowed the altar. Time had round it cast 

 A soli-inn beauty and a rich decay. 

 Old marble steps ascended to the Fane 

 Touched, like the columns, with the golden tinge 

 Of many years. Nature had marked the- place- 

 Out for religion/' pp. 10, 11. 



But Mr. Johns does not merely prove himself capa- 

 ble of graphic excellency as the next extract will abun- 

 dantly testify. 



" Night was lost 



In the fresh morn ; and one resplendent shape 

 Lay on the grass within that lonely glade, 

 And dressed her sinning tresses in the stream. 

 Twas the Goddess of the Brook : First of the Four, 

 She came in solitary loveliness, 

 And watched her beauty in her own clear wave. 

 A form so fair has never blessed the dreams 

 Of the divinest mortal. Let the bard 

 Create the charms he raves of yet that Shape 

 Would shine like Phosphor o'er 'the vulgar stars. 



