But there were deeper love-tales for thine ears Than mellow-tongued Theocritus could tell: Over him like a sea two thousand years Had swept. They solemnized his music well! Farewell! What word could answer but farewell, From thee, O happy spirit, that couldst steal So quietly from this world at break of day? What voice of ours could break the silent spell Beauty had cast upon thee, or reveal The gates of sun and dew Which oped and let thee through And led thee heavenward by that deep enchanted way? XII Yet here thou mad'st thy choice: Love, Wisdom, Power, As once before young Paris, they stood here! Beneath them Ida, like one full-blown flower, Shed her bloom earthward thro' the radiant air Leaving her rounded fruit, their beauty, bare To the everlasting dawn; and, in thy palm The golden apple of the Hesperian isle Which thou must only yield to the Most Fair; But not to Juno's great luxurious calm, Nor Dian's curved white moon, Gav'st thou the sunset's boon, Nor to foam-bosomed Aphrodite's rose-lipped smile. XIII Here didst thou make the eternal choice aright, Here, in this hallowed haunt of nymph and faun, They stood before thee in that great new light, The three great splendours of the immortal dawn, With all the cloudy veils of Time withdrawn Or only glistening round the firm white snows Of their pure beauty like the golden dew Brushed from the feathery ferns below the lawn; But not to cold Diana's morning rose, Nor to great Juno's frown Cast thou the apple down, And, when the Paphian raised her lustrous eyes anew, XIV Thou from thy soul didst whisper--_in that heaven Which yearns beyond us! Lead me up the height! How should the golden fruit to one be given Till your three splendours in that Sun unite Where each in each ye move like light in light? How should I judge the rapture till I know The pain?_ And like three waves of music there They closed thee round, blinding thy blissful sight With beauty and, like one roseate orb a-glow, They bore thee on their breasts Up the sun-smitten crests And melted with thee smiling into the Most Fair. XV