Clustering

Ortygia's port we leave, and skim the mere; / soon Naxos' Bacchanalian hills appear, / and past Olearos and Donysa, crowned / with trees, and Paros' snowy cliffs we steer. / Far-scattered shine the Cyclades renowned, / and clustering isles thick-sown in many a glittering sound.

Drawn by some strange force, from the unfathomable depths below, eerie shapes sought the surface, blinking glassily at the unfamiliar glare they had exchanged for their native gloom—uncouth creatures bedight with tasselled fringes like weed-growths waving around them, fathom-long, medusae with coloured spots like eyes clustering all over their transparent substance, wriggling worm-like forms of such elusive matter that the smallest exposure to the sun melted them, and they were not.

I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow, and I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts, Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset. I'll bring thee To clust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?