5.

Then, through those translucencies, As grew my senses clearer clear, Did I see, and did I hear, How under an elm’s canopy Wheeled a flight of Dryades Murmuring measured melody. Gyre in gyre their treading was, Wheeling with an adverse flight, In twi-circle o’er the grass, These to left, and those to right; All the band Linked by each other’s hand; Decked in raiment stained as The blue-helmed aconite. And they advance with flutter, with grace, To the dance Moving on with a dainty pace, As blossoms mince it on river swells. Over their heads their cymbals shine, Round each ankle gleams a twine Of twinkling bells - Tune twirled golden from their cells. Every step was a tinkling sound, As they glanced in their dancing-ground, Clouds in cluster with such a sailing Float o’er the light of the wasting moon, As the cloud of their gliding veiling Swung in the sway of the dancing-tune. There was the clash of their cymbals clanging, Ringing of swinging bells clinging their feet; And the clang on wing it seemed a-hanging, Hovering round their dancing so fleet. - I stirred, I rustled more than meet; Whereat they broke to the left and right, With eddying robes like aconite Blue of helm; And I beheld to the foot o’ the elm.

They have not tripped those dances, betrayed to my gaze, To glad the heart of Sylvia, beholding of their maze; Through barky walls have slid away, And tricked them in their holiday, For other than for Sylvia; While all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, And bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.