6 ARGONAUTAE
Light, as I swim through rollers green and gleaming,
Sheds its most subtle sense to penetrate
This heart I thought impervious to Fate.
Now the sweet light, the full delight, is beaming
Through me and burns me: all my flesh is teeming
With the live kisses of the sea, my mate,
My mistress, till the fires of life abate
And leave me languid, man-forgotten, deeming
T see in sleep, in many-coloured night,
More hope than in the flame-waves of the light.
Light! ever light! I swim far out and follow
The footsteps of the wind, and light invades
My desolate soul, and all the cypress shades
Glow with transparent lustre, and the hollow
I thought I had hidden in my heart must swallow
The bitter draught of Truth; no Nereid maids
Even in my sea are mine; the whole sea’s glades
And hills and springs are void of my Apollo—
The Sea herself my tune and my desire!
The Sun himself my lover and my lyre!
CHORUS.
This song is sweeter than the honeycomb.
MEDEA.
Nearly as sweet as good friends quarrelling.
JASON.
Look, friends, methinks I see a silvern shape
Like faint mist floating on the farthest sea.