Tangles of the wild red strawberry
     Spread their freckled trammels frail;
     In the pathway creeping brambles
     Catch her in their thorny trail.

     All the widely sweeping greensward
     Shifts and swims from knoll to knoll;
     Grey rough-fingered oak and elm wood
     Push her by from bole to bole.

     Groves of lemon, groves of citron,
     Tall high-foliaged plane and palm,
     Bloomy myrtle, light-blue olive,
     Wave her back with gusts of balm.

     Languid jasmine, scrambling briony,
     Walls of close-festooning braid,
     Fling themselves about her, mingling
     With her wafted looks, waylaid.

     Twisting bindweed, honey’d woodbine,
     Cling to her, while, red and blue,
     On her rounded form ripe berries
     Dash and die in gory dew.

     Running ivies dark and lingering
     Round her light limbs drag and twine;
     Round her waist with languorous tendrils
     Reels and wreathes the juicy vine;

     Reining in the flying creature
     With its arms about her mouth;
     Bursting all its mellowing bunches
     To seduce her husky drouth;

     Crowning her with amorous clusters;
     Pouring down her sloping back
     Fresh-born wines in glittering rillets,
     Following her in crimson track.

     Buried, drenched in dewy foliage,
     Thus she glimmers from the dawn,
     Watched by every forest creature,
     Fleet-foot Oread, frolic Faun.

     Silver-sandalled Arethusa
     Not more swiftly fled the sands,
     Fled the plains and fled the sunlights,
     Fled the murmuring ocean strands.

     O, that now the earth would open! 
     O, that now the shades would hide! 
     O, that now the gods would shelter! 
     Caverns lead and seas divide!

     Not more faint soft-lowing Io
     Panted in those starry eyes,
     When the sleepless midnight meadows
     Piteously implored the skies!

     Still her breathless flight she urges
     By the sanctuary stream,
     And the god with golden swiftness
     Follows like an eastern beam.

     Her the close bewildering greenery
     Darkens with its duskiest green, —
     Him each little leaflet welcomes,
     Flushing with an orient sheen.

     Thus he nears, and now all Tempe
     Rings with his melodious cry,
     Avenues and blue expanses
     Beam in his large lustrous eye!

     All the branches start to music! 
     As if from a secret spring
     Thousands of sweet bills are bubbling
     In the nest and on the wing.

     Gleams and shines the glassy river
     And rich valleys every one;
     But of all the throbbing beauty
     Brightest! singled by the sun!