LXVI. But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave 36 Of the most living crystal was e'er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk - white steer Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! And most serene of aspect, and most clear: Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaugthers-A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters! LXVII. And on thy happy shore a temple still, Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps LXVIII. Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! LXIX. The roar of waters! from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; The fall of waters! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, LXX. And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent LXXI. To the broad column which rolls on, and shows Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Lo! where it comes like an eternity, As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread, - a matchless cataract, 37 LXXII. Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, surge, 38 Like Hope upon a death bed, and, unworn Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Apennine, But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear LXXIV. Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, For still they soar'd unutterably high: I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye; Athos, Olympus, Aetna, Atlas, made These hills seem things of lesser dignity, All, save the lone Socrate's height, display'd Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid LXXV. For our remembrance, and from out the plain Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, And on, the curl hangs pausing: not in vain May he, who will, his recollections rake And quote in classic raptures, and awake The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word 40 In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record |