250
Towards the craggy cave, and rested there,
Looking upon the sunshine on the waves
Of the pale-blue AEgean, still intent,
Watching the sail, that, by the western beam
Illumined, held its course towards the shore.
Icarian figs furnished a scant repast,
With water from the rock, after their toil;
While they, within the cave, conversing sat
Of virtue and of vice, of sin and death,
Of youth and age, and pleasure's flowery path, 260
Leading to sorrow and untimely death.

PART SIXTH.

Reflections--Grecian Girl and Dying Libertine--Reflections on Past
History of the World--Angel's Disappearance--Ship brings the Elders
of Ephesus to invite John to return--Parting from Patmos, and Last
Farewell.

Then the mysterious and majestic man
Thus spoke: Among the banished criminals,
As they passed yesterday, didst thou not mark
A pale, emaciate youth, and by his side,
Oft looking in his altered face, with tears,
A beauteous Grecian female! He was one 6
Who crowned his hair with roses; trod the path
Of love and pleasure, till the vision fled.
And left him here, an outcast criminal,
Soon, without hope, to sink into the grave,
And leave his young companion desolate!
So ends a life of pleasure! Woe for them,
The young, the gay, the guilty, who rejoice
In life's brief sunshine, then are swept away,
Forgotten as the swarms in summer time.
As thus he spake, smiling amid her tears,
With eyes that flashed beneath dishevelled hair,
A female stood before them.
Look on me,
She sighed, and spake: 20
No! father, hear my prayer:
At Corinth I was born; my mother died
When I was yet a very child; my sire
Trafficked to Tyre, and when my mother died,
He left the woods, the hills, and shores of Greece
To seek a dwelling-place in Asia,
At Tyre or Smyrna; but the tempest rose,
And cast his vessel on the rocky coast
Of Cyprus. I was found upon the shore,
Escaped I know not how, for he was dead; 30
And pitying strangers bore me to the fane
Of Paphian Venus.[180] There my infancy
Grew up in opening beauty, like the rose,
Ere summer has unfolded it; I looked
Upon the dove's blue eyes; how sorrowful,
That it mu