144 GLAUCUS ; OR, 
And here were coral bowers, 
And grots of madrepores, 
And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye 
As e’er was mossy bed 
Whereon the wood-nymphs lie 
With languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours. 
Here, too, were living flowers, 
Which, like a bud compacted, 
Their purple cups contracted ; 
And now in open blossom spread, 
Stretch’d, like green anthers, many a seeking head. 
And arborets of jointed stone were there, 
And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s thread ; 
Yea, beautiful as mermaid’s golden hair 
Upon the waves dispread. 
Others that, like the broad banana growing, 
Raised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue, 
Like streamers wide outflowing.’—Kehama, xvi. 5. 
“A hundred times you might fancy you saw the 
type, the very original of this description, tracing, 
line by line, and image by image, the details of the 
picture; and acknowledging, as you proceed, the 
minute truthfulness with which it has been drawn. 
For such is the loveliness of nature in these secluded 
reservoirs, that the accomplished poet, when depict- 
ing the gorgeous scenes of Eastern mythology—scenes 
the wildest and most extravagant that imagination 
could paint—drew not upon the resources of his 
