Far, far from here, <br /> The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay <br /> Among the green Illyrian hills; and there <br /> The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, <br /> And by the sea, and in the brakes. <br /> The grass is cool, the sea-side air <br /> Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers <br /> More virginal and sweet than ours. <br /> <br /> And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes, <br /> Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia, <br /> Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore, <br /> In breathless quiet, after all their ills; <br /> Nor do they see their country, nor the place <br /> Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills, <br /> Nor the unhappy palace of their race, <br /> Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more. <br /> <br /> There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes! <br /> They had stay'd long enough to see, <br /> In Thebes, the billow of calamity <br /> Over their own dear children roll'd, <br /> Curse upon curse, pang upon pang, <br /> For years, they sitting helpless in their home, <br /> A grey old man and woman; yet of old <br /> The Gods had to their marriage come, <br /> And at the banquet all the Muses sang. <br /> <br /> Therefore they did not end their days <br /> In sight of blood, but were rapt, far away, <br /> To where the west-wind plays, <br /> And murmurs of the Adriatic come <br /> To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there <br /> Placed safely in changed forms, the pair <br /> Wholly forgot their first sad life, and home, <br /> And all that Theban woe, and stray <br /> For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.<br /><br />Matthew Arnold<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cadmus-and-harmonia/
