Originally published in The Argosy (Strahan & Co.) vol.2 #9 (Aug 1866).
We loved two Poets in that happy time;
And read together, sitting hand in hand,
Where the rocks cast a shadow on the sand,
And sunny waves made echo to the rhyme:
Theocritus of Sicily—who sung
Of many a dusky dryad-haunted grove,
Of shepherds' sorrows and of maidens' love,
In measures sweetest of the sweet Greek tongue;
And Milton—whose blind spirit could conceive
The Paradise no other mortals know,
The grand primeval passion and the woe
Of the first-born Adam and sweet Eve.
And as we read, we marvelled Love could be
So old, and yet so new to her and me!