[Sidenote: By Shelley [Footnote: Inserted in a later hand,
here as p. 18.] ]
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows,
In the Acroceraunian mountains,--
From cloud, and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks
With her rainbow locks,
Streaming among the streams,--
Her steps paved with green [5]
The downward ravine,
Which slopes to the Western gleams:--
And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.
Then Alpheus bold
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook;
And opened a chasm
In the rocks;--with the spasm
All Erymanthus shook.
And the black south wind
It unsealed behind
The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder
The bars of the springs below:--
And the beard and the hair
Of the river God were
Seen through the torrent's sweep
As he followed the light [6]
Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.
Oh, save me! oh, guide me!
And bid the deep hide me,
For he grasps me now by the hair!
The loud ocean heard,
To its blue depth stirred,
And divided at her prayer[,]
And under the water
The Earth's white daughter
Fled like a sunny beam,
Behind her descended
Her billows unblended
With the brackish Dorian stream:--
Like a gloomy stain
On the Emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,
As an eagle pursueing
A dove to its ruin,
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.
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