23
Whose glistening curve across the skies is thrown,
And girds the rain-cloud with an emerald zone.
The plain, than all its flowers more lovely still,
Sloped gently up, and swelled into a hill:
From pumice grots the bounding streamlets flowed,
And kissed the herbage on their downward road;
While 'gainst the fiercest heats a shadowy grove
The cool protection of its branches wove.
There cast, though summer reigned, a wintry gloom
The Jove-loved oak, and cypress of the tomb;
Pine meet for ships, and cornel for the fray,
With ilex honey-stored, and prescient bay:
There traced the crisped box its waving line,
There crept the ivy, and there clung the vine.
Hard by, a lake extends its waters cold,
(The name was Pergus which it took of old)
To skirt the woodland glade, whose leafy fringe
Sheds o'er its tranquil verge a paler tinge.
The still expanse, in cloudless purity,
Invites the gazer's undistracted eye
To pierce its surface, and, where calm they sleep,
Reveals the treasures of its inmost deep.
Light flies the troop along those flowery meads,
Joy wings their steps, and Cytherea leads:
