And as a nightingale that having heard

A perfect music from some master’s lyre,

Steals into coverts lone,

With her own melodies no more contented,

68

But haunted by the strain, till then unknown,

Seeks to re-sing it back, herself to charm,

Seeks still and ever fails,

Missing the key-note which unlocks the music,

72

So, from her former pastimes in the choir

Of comrade virgins, stole Argiope,

Lone amid summer leaves

Brooding that thought which was her joy and trouble.

76

The King discerned the change in his fair child,

And questioned oft, yet could not learn the cause;

The sunny bridge between

The lip and heart which childhood builds was broken.

80

Not more Aurora, stealing into heaven,

Conceals the mystic treasures of the deep

Whence with chaste blush she comes,

Than virgin bosoms guard their earliest secret.

84

Omartes sought the priest, to whose wise heart

So dear the maiden, he was wont to say

That grains of crackling salt

From her pure hand, upon the altar sprinkled,

88

Sent up a flame to loftier heights in heaven

‘Than that which rolled from hecatombs in smoke.

‘King,’ said the musing seer,

‘Behold, the woodbine, opening infant blossoms,

92

‘Perfumes the bank whose herbage hems it round,

From its own brithplace drinking in delight;

Later, its instinct stirs;

Fain would it climb - to climb forbidden, creepeth,

96

‘Its lot obeys its yearning to entwine;

Around the oak it weaves a world of flowers;

Or, listless drooping, trails

Dejected tendrils lost mid weed and briar,

100