Far, far from here,
 The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
 Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
 The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
 And by the sea, and in the brakes.
 The grass is cool, the sea-side air
 Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
 More virginal and sweet than ours. 

 And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes,
 Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia,
 Bask in the glens or on the warm sea-shore,
 In breathless quiet, after all their ills;
 Nor do they see their country, nor the place
 Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills,
 Nor the unhappy palace of their race,
 Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more. 

 There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes!
 They had stay'd long enough to see,
 In Thebes, the billow of calamity
 Over their own dear children roll'd, 
 Curse upon curse, pang upon pang, 
 For years, they sitting helpless in their home, 
 A grey old man and woman; yet of old 
 The Gods had to their marriage come, 
 And at the banquet all the Muses sang. 

 Therefore they did not end their days 
 In sight of blood, but were rapt, far away, 
 To where the west-wind plays,
 And murmurs of the Adriatic come 
 To those untrodden mountain-lawns; and there 
 Placed safely in changed forms, the pair 
 Wholly forgot their first sad life, and home, 
 And all that Theban woe, and stray 
 For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.