To A Greek Girl On The Seashore
To A Greek Girl On The Seashore
Original Text
The Collected Sonnets of Charles (Tennyson) Turner. Ed. F. B. Pinion and M. Pinion (London: MacMillan Press, 1988) : 202.
1There are no heathen gods to play the rogue
2With wandering maidens, as in olden time;
3Whose wild Olympian hearts were all agog
4To choose their victim, and inflict their crime:
5Thou hast been gathering flowers, a fragrant store,
6But no grim Dis has seiz'd thee for his bride;
7And though thou rovest on this houseless shore
8No horned Zeus betrays thee to the tide.
9Olympus is gone by; but thou art there,
10The ward of truer heavens, all pure and sweet:
11No lust nor guile thy lonely path shall meet:
12The Father's Self, Who made thee good and fair,
13And pours His gentle waves about thy feet,
14Upholds thy virgin footsteps everywhere.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
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