A Tale of True Love Author:Alfred Austin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3POLYPHEMUS The Cyclops, Polyphemus, son of Neptune and Thobsa, dwelt alone in a cavern on the slopes of Mount Etna, and passionately loved the nymph Galatea. But she loved, and was love... more »d by, the beautiful shepherd boy, Acis, and sported with him on the mountain and in the sea. Polyphemus, in a transport of ungovernable jealousy, sought to destroy both by hurling on them a rock torn from the flanks of Etna. But the gods interposed, and changed Galatea into a mermaid, and Acis into a hillside stream, so that the twain might never be separated. POLYPHEMUS "where lurk they now? Either in some green grot, With cool, moist mosses overhung, that drink From slowly-welling, never-waning wave The freshness of their sustenance; or hid In the snug hollow of some rounded bole, Chestnut or pine, whose heart corroding time Hath pared away, leaving the knotted rind For shelter against sunshine, wind, or rain, The weather's wantonness; or, haply, couched Under the veil of newly-wedded vine, And, like its lissom tendrils, interlaced The one within the other, palm with palm, And fingers feeling fondly round the throat And underneath the tresses, smooth-skinned pair, Whom unforeseeing heedlessness of love And insolicitude of youth enthral, To one vague purpose by themselves unguessed, Still pasturing on the flowery sweets of life. I see them neither on the hill, nor yet Down in the vale, nor on the dimpled beach, Nor sporting with the dolphins in the wave : Though this one orb, crafty Ulysses seared, By Neptune's healing potency restored, From mainland unto mainland wandereth wide, Scanning each dip and dingle of the isle, And every ridge and roller of the sea. Well, better thus ! Did I behold them now, In noonday heat, their ruddy lips as close As cherry unto cherry on one stem, Th...« less