CORFU.
Now, doth not summer's sunny smile
Sink soft o'er that Ionian isle,
While round the kindling waters sweep
The murmured music of the deep,
The many melodies that swell
From breaking wave and red-lipp'd shell?
Love mine! how sweet it were to leave
This weary world of ours behind,
And borrow from the blushing eve
The wild wings of the wandering wind?
Would we not flee away and find
Some lonely cave beside the shore?
One, where a Nereid dwelt of yore,
And sheltered in its glistening bowers,
A love almost as fond as ours?
A diamond spar incrusts the walls,
A rainbow light from crystal falls;
And, musical amid the gloom,
A fountain's silvery showers illume
The further darkness, as with ray
And song it finds its sparkling way.
A natural lute and lamp—a tone,
A light, to wilder waves unknown.
The cave is curtain'd with the vine,
And inside wandering branches twine,
While from the large green leaves escape
The blooming clusters of the grape;—
Fruit with such hyacinthine glow
As southern sunbeams only know.
We will not leave it, till the moon
Lulls with her languid look the sea;
Sleep, shadow, silence for the noon,
But midnight Love to wake with thee.
When the sweet myrtle trees exhale
The odours of their blossoms pale,
And dim and purple colours steep
Those blossoms in their perfumed sleep;
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