If quickly you turn
And, before they escape you surprise them.
They grudge you should learn
How the soft plains they look on, lean over
And love (they pretend) 190
--Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,
The wild fruit-trees bend,
E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut:
All is silent and grave:
'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty,
How fair! but a slave.
So, I turned to the sea; and there slumbered
As greenly as ever
Those isles of the siren, your Galli;
No ages can sever 200
The Three, nor enable their sister
To join them,--halfway
On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses--
No farther to-day,
Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave,
Watches breast-high and steady
>From under the rock, her bold sister
Swum halfway already.
Fort, shall we sail there together
And see from the sides 210
Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts
Where the siren abides?
Shall we sail round and round them, close over
The rocks, tho' unseen,
That ruffle the grey glassy water