We pause for a moment to consider what a sea-captain might have expected to hear, by night, in the Atlantic ocean--he heard --'neither the warbling of the _nightingale_ Nor melody o' the Libyan lotusflute,' but he did hear the three daughters of Hesper singing the following song:-- 'The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowèd fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily, Singing airily, Standing about the charmèd root, Round about all is mute'-- _mute_, though they sung so loud as to be heard some leagues out at sea-- ----'all is mute As the snow-field on mountain peaks, As the sand-field at the mountain foot. Crocodiles in briny creeks Sleep, and stir not: all is mute.' How admirably do these lines describe the peculiarities of this charmèd neighbourhood--fields of snow, so talkative when they happen to lie at the foot of the mountain, are quite out of breath when they get to the top, and the sand, so noisy on the summit of a hill, is dumb at its foot. The very crocodiles, too, are _mute_--not dumb but _mute_. The 'red-combèd dragon curl'd' is next introduced-- 'Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be stolen away, For his ancient heart is drunk with overwatchings night and day, Sing away, sing aloud evermore, in the wind, without stop.' The north wind, it appears, has by this time awaked again-- 'Lest his scalèd eyelid drop, For he is older than the world'-- older than the _hills_, besides not rhyming to 'curl'd,' would hardly have been a sufficiently venerable phrase for this most harmonious of lyrics. It proceeds-- 'If ye sing not, if ye make false measure, We shall lose eternal pleasure, Worth eternal want of rest. Laugh not loudly: watch the treasure Of the wisdom of the west. In _a corner_ wisdom whispers. Five and three (_Let it not be preached abroad_) make an awful mystery.'--p. 102. This recipe for keeping a secret, by singing it so loud as to be heard for miles, is almost the only point, in all Mr. Tennyson's poems, in which we can trace the remotest approach to anything like what other men have written, but it certainly does remind us of the 'chorus of conspirators' in the Rovers. Hanno, however, who understood no language but Punic--(the Hesperides sang, we presume, either in Greek or in English)--appears to have kept on his way without taking any notice of the song, for the poem concludes,-- 'The apple of gold hangs over the sea, Five links, a gold chain, are we, Hesper, the Dragon, and sisters three; Daughters three, Bound about All around about The gnarlèd bole of the charmèd tree, The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowèd fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily, Watch it warily, Singing airily Standing about the charmèd root.'--p. 107. We hardly think that, if Hanno had translated it into Punic, the song would have been more intelligible.