That softly swell,
Just oped to speak,
With blushing cheek,
That fisherman
With lonely spear
On the reef ken,
And lift to ear
Its voice to hear,--
Soft sighing South!
Like this, like this,--
The rosy kiss!--
That maiden's mouth.
A shell! a shell!
A vocal shell!
Song-dreaming,
In its inmost dell!

Her bosom! Two buds half blown, they tell;
A little valley between perfuming;
That roves away,
Deserting the day,--
The day of her eyes illuming;--
That roves away, o'er slope and fell,
Till a soft, soft meadow becomes the dell.

Thus far, old Mohi had been wriggling about in his seat, twitching his
beard, and at every couplet looking up expectantly, as if he desired
the company to think, that he was counting upon that line as the last;
But now, starting to his feet, he exclaimed, "Hold, minstrel! thy
muse's drapery is becoming disordered: no more!"