CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES[307:1]
Hear, my belovéd, an old Milesian story!—
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it. [5]
From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple. 10
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it [15]
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.
? 1799.
FOOTNOTES:
[307:1] First published in 1834. These lines, which are not 'Hendecasyllables', are a translation of part of Friedrich von Matthisson's Milesisches Mährchen. For the original see Note to Poems, 1852, and [Appendices] of this edition. There is no evidence as to the date of composition. The emendations in lines 5 and 6 were first printed in P. W., 1893.
LINENOTES:
[[5]]
blest] plac'd 1834, 1844, 1852.