On First Reading Landor’s Hellenics
Two sauntering, hand in hand, one happy day,
Along a pleasant path that neither knew,
Came, glad and startled, on the sudden blue,
With sails unclouded, of a sunny bay,
And hollowing toward the wave a meadow, gray
With honey-giving growths thick-spread as dew.
There goatskin-girt, with limbs like bronze in hue,
Free-bathed in sun and wind, a shepherd lay.
Asleep, his reed pipe fallen by his knee;
And late, it seemed, a song had left his lips.
We heard but lapping ripple, prattling bee
Above the thyme’s dim-purple, downy tips;
Beyond, once beat by oars of beakéd ships,
Far outward swept the calm, the storied sea.