LANDSCAPE L>75 



died on earth. 1 They wandered in woodland vast beneath the 

 niggard light, among tresses of wavering reeds and heavy- 

 headed poppies, by silent lakes without a flaw and rivulets 

 that have no murmur in their ripple. Along the margin of 

 those waters, dimly seen through twilight, pine flowers upon 

 whose petals writ in tears are names of princes and of boys 

 Narcissus gazing on his own fair face, and Crocus of the 

 golden curls, and Hyacinth the son of (Ebalus, and Adonis 

 dyed in purple hue, and Salaminian Aias stamped with his 

 deep tragic groan. These remembrances of death and sorrow, 

 symbols of lamentation and of love, recall to mind the anguish 

 of stern fates erewhile assoiled and buried in the tomb, and 

 bring before those heroines the memory of scenes enacted by 

 them also in the world above.' 



The sentiment for nature to which I want to call attention 

 in these lines is exhibited by the poet's sense of atmosphere, 

 his feeling for tone, his subordination of the figures to the 

 composition. The whole forms a picture ; and even the Greek 

 mythology of the flowers is so treated as to recede into a 

 region of symbolic spirituality. The landscape suggested by 

 these two hexameters : 



Inter arundineasque comas gravidumque papaver 

 Et tacitos sine labe lacus, sine murmure rivos 



I transcribe the original of these lines : 



Aeris in campis, memorat quos Musa Maronis, 

 Myrteus amentes ubi lucus opacat amantes, 

 Orgia ducebant heroides et sua quseque, 

 Ut quondam occiderant, leti argumenta gerebant, 

 Errantes silva in magna et sub luce maligna, 

 Inter arundineasque comas gravidumque papaver 

 Et tacitos sine labe lacus, sine murmure rivos : 

 Quorum per ripas nebuloso lumine marcent 

 Fleti olim regum et puerorum nomina flores, 

 Mirator Narcissus et (Ebalides Hyacinthus, 

 Et Crocus auricomans et murice pictus Adonis, 

 Et tragico scriptus gemitu Salnminius Aias. 

 Omnia quse lacrimis et amoribus anxia maestis 

 Exercent memores obita jam morte dolores, 

 Kursus in amissum revocant heroidas eevum. 



T 2 



