A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That linger'd in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals 310
Of dolphins bob their noses through the
brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming
string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten-out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's
children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes - not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull 320
Time's sweet first-fruits - they danced to
weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
young mind from its bodily tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the
raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the
trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip