"G—a—l—Galatea." So there grew
On his part, like some half-remembered tale,
The new-found memory of an ice-bound crew,
And vague garrulities of spouting whale,—
Of sea-cow basking upon berg and floe.
And Polar light, and stunted Eskimo.
Till, in his heart, which hitherto had been
Locked as those frozen barriers of the North,
There came once more the season of the green,—
The tender bud-time and the putting forth,
So that the man, before the new sensation,
Felt for the child a kind of adoration;—
Rising by night, to search for shell and flower,
To lay in places where she found them first;
Hoarding his cherished goat's milk for the hour
When those young lips might feel the summer's thirst;
Holding himself for all devotion paid
By that clear laughter of the little maid.
Dwelling, alas! in that fond Paradise
Where no to-morrow quivers in suspense,—
Where scarce the changes of the sky suffice
To break the soft forgetfulness of sense,—
Where dreams become realities; and where
I willingly would leave him—did I dare.
Yet for a little space it still endured,
Until, upon a day when least of all
The softened Cyclops, by his hopes assured,
Dreamed the inevitable blow could fall,
Came the stern moment that should all destroy,
Bringing a pert young cockerel of a Boy.
Middy, I think,—he'd "Acis" on his box:—
A black-eyed, sun-burnt, mischief-making imp,
Pet of the mess,—a Puck with curling locks,
Who straightway travestied the Cyclops' limp,
And marveled how his cousin so could care
For such a "one-eyed, melancholy Bear."
Thus there was war at once; not overt yet,
For still the Child, unwilling, would not break
The new acquaintanceship, nor quite forget
The pleasant past; while, for his treasure's sake,
The boding smith with clumsy efforts tried
To win the laughing scorner to his side.
There are some sights pathetic; none I know
More sad than this: to watch a slow-wrought mind
Humbling itself, for love, to come and go
Before some petty tyrant of its kind;
Saddest, ah!—saddest far,—when it can do
Naught to advance the end it has in view.
This was at least the Cyclops' case, until,
Whether the boy beguiled the Child away,
Or whether that limp Matron on the Hill
Woke from her novel-reading trance, one day
He waited long and wearily in vain,—
But, from that hour, they never came again.
Yet still he waited, hoping—wondering if
They still might come, or dreaming that he heard
The sound of far-off voices on the cliff,
Or starting strangely when the she-goat stirred;
But nothing broke the silence of the shore,
And, from that hour, the Child returned no more.