In days of yore, while yet the world was new,
And all around was beautiful to view--
When spring or summer ruled the happy hours,
And golden fruit hung down mid opening flowers;
When, if you chanced among the woods to stray,
The rosy-footed dryad led the way,--
Or if, beside a mountain brook, your path,
You ever caught some naïad at her bath:
'Twas in that golden day, that Damon strayed.
Musing, alone, along a Grecian glade.
Retired the scene, yet in the morning light,
Athens in view, shone glimmering to the sight.
'Twas far away, yet painted on the skies,
It seemed a marble cloud of glorious dyes,
Where yet the rosy morn, with lingering ray,
Loved on the sapphire pediments to play.
But why did Damon heed the _distant_ scene?
For he was young, and all around was green:
A noisy brook was romping through the dell,
And on his ear the laughing echoes fell:
Along his path the stooping wild flowers grew,
And woo'd the very zephyrs as they flew.
Then why young Damon, heeding nought around,
Seemed in some thrall of distant vision bound,
I cannot tell--but dreamy grew his gaze,
And all his thought was in a misty maze.
Awhile he sauntered--then beneath a tree,
He sat him down, and there a reverie
Came o'er his spirit like a spell,--and bright,
A truth-like vision, shone upon his sight.