While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
Of health and holy feeling can provide
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher
Than Egypt's river:—from that gentle side
Drink—drink, and live—Old Man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.
CLI.
The starry fable of the Milky Way[1]
Has not thy story's purity; it is
A constellation of a sweeter ray,
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
Where sparkle distant worlds:—Oh, holiest Nurse!
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
To thy Sire's heart, replenishing its source[2]
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the Universe.
CLII.
Turn to the Mole[3] which Hadrian reared on high,
- ↑ [It was fabled of the Milky Way that when Mercury held up the infant Hercules to Juno's breast, that he might drink in divinity, the goddess pushed him away, and that drops of milk fell into the void, and became a multitude of tiny stars. The story is told by Eratosthenes of Cyrene (B.C. 276), in his Catasterismi (Treatise on Star Legends), No. 44: Opusc. Mythol., Amsterdam, 1688, p. 136.]
- ↑
To its original fountain but repierce
Thy sire's heart——.—[MS. M. erased.] - ↑ The castle of St. Angelo. (See Historical Illustrations.)
[Hadrian's mole or mausoleum, now the Castle of St.
