Arethusa By Percy Bysshe Shelley

The poem Arethusa by Percy Bysshe Shelley follows the myth of the water nymph, Arethusa, who had coins struck and a popular cult following - she is assisted by the ocean in taking a journey from Greece to Italy to escape unrequited love, and is turned into a fountain on the island of Ortygia. This is connected to the account that objects tossed in Alpheus river would spring up in Ortygian wells. This track was assisted by a purring cat, Osiris, and has singing bowls in the background.

Transcript

Marathuza arose from her couch of snows in the Yacrisaronian mountains,

From cloud and from crag,

With many a jack,

Shepherding her bright fountains.

She leapt down the rocks with her rainbow locks,

Streaming among the streams,

Her steps paved with green the downward ravine which slopes to the western gleams.

And gliding and springing she went,

Ever singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep.

The earth seemed to love her,

And heaven smiled above her as she lingered towards the deep.

Then Alpheus bowled on his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains struck,

And opened a chasm in the rocks,

With the spasm all Eremanthes shook.

And the black south wind it unsealed behind the urns of the silent snow,

And earthquake and thunder did rend in thunder the bars of the springs below.

And the beard and the hair of the river-god were seen through the torrent's sweep,

As he followed the light of the fleet Nymph's flight to the brink of the Dorian deep.

O save me,

O guide me,

And bid the deep hide me,

Pre-grasp me now by the hair.

The loud ocean heard to its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer.

And under the water the earth's daughter fled like a sunny beam.

And her descended her billows unblended with the brackish Dorian stream.

Like a gloomy stain on the emerald main,

Alpheus rushed behind,

As an eagle pursuing a dove to its ruin down the streams of the cloudy wind.

Under the bowers where the ocean powers sit on their pearled thrones,

Through the coral woods of the weltering floods,

Over heaps of unvalued stones,

Through the dim beams which emit the streams weave a network of colored light,

And under the caves where the shadowy waves are as green as the forest's night,

Outspeeding the shark in the swordfish dark,

Under the ocean's foam,

And up through the rifts of the mountain cliffs they passed to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains in Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks,

Like friends once parted grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.

At sunrise they leap from their cradles steep in the cave of the shelving hill.

At noontide they flow through the woods below and the meadows of Asphodel.

And at night they sleep in the rocking deep beneath the Ortesian shore,

Like spirits that lie in the azure sky when they love but live no more.

Reviews

So fun to listen to and dream away…… 🌊🧜🧜‍♀️🪸🐚💫

That was beautiful!! Wonderfully read. It sounded like a cat was purring softly in the background! Ty 🙏☮️💜
11/8/23.. still so beautiful ~ likesoirits that lie in the azure sky/where they love but live no more 💜

Breathtaking poem, your beautiful voice brings it to life. NAMASTE

It’s always comforting to hear your soothing voice Kristen (whether here or in a Live session) and the purring cat is a nice touch.😀

Ohhh thank you dear Kristen for sharing your kind poem I felt like a little girl when my beloved granny spoke poems to me...

Absolutely beautiful! And the purring cat is just an added bonus! So calming! Thank you!

So beautifully read and such wonderful words. 💖 I absolutely loved the cats purring too - so relaxing. Thank you Kristen. 🙏✨