romance, a thing that might have been chanted by


"The lonely maiden of the Lake"


when


"Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps,
Upon the hidden bases of the hills."


Perhaps the most exquisite adaptation of all are the lines from the
Odyssey -


"Where falls not hail nor rain, nor any snow."


"Softly through the flutes of the Grecians" came first these Elysian
numbers, then through Lucretius, then through Tennyson's own
Lucretius, then in Mr Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon:-


"Lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of west
Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea
Rolls without wind for ever, and the snow
There shows not her white wings and windy feet,
Nor thunder nor swift rain saith anything,