LXXV. From Sorrow's hopeless breast: and, as in Vision, Scenes of our youth are pictured on our sleep, On the rich bank the wild flowers seem to steep When fancy hued the world, and love believed her true ! LXXVI. But lo, how like a silent exhalation, O'er yon green bank, CLITUMNUS rears his shrine! Is that all delicate Temple the creation Of human hands? As clasps the elm the vine, So sculptured leaves round those fair columns twine; The Roman felt the genius of the place, And offered thus his gratitude; divine Was their dark faith; yea, an eternal grace Lingers around it, for they left on earth no trace, LXXVII. Where they embodied not in living forms How beautifully true! man's, nature's storms, LXXVIII. Again the Mountains opening gates unfold: Chaos of crags beneath her footstool rolled, The Beautiful is sleeping in her bed; The infinite of landscape; hill and mead, Woods, towers, and streams which through the dis tance wind, Till lost 'midst azure hills which seem in heaven en shrined. I LXXIX. The breasting road hewn round the giant hill, With nodding cliff, and precipice o'erhung; The imminent brink which, gazing o'er, doth thrill: His broken song, like witch-notes upward flung! Our home, our Father-land whose memories slept be fore! LXXX. A gorge cleft through the mountain's mighty heart: Is't her volcanic breathings that we hear? Or pent up winds, or earth's spasmodic start? Clouds rising thick as from the abyss of hell; The sounds which their eternal conflict tell, Loud as o'er distant storms the Thunder's sinking knell. LXXXI. Lo!-wildly hurrying-wreathed in mist and foam, Flashing like sheeted lightning on the sight, Velino rushes from his Mountain home, All beautiful but terrible in might! One desperate bound from yonder cloud-capped height, High o'er the din and wreck his crown is shown LXXXII. Still hovering o'er him in his ruin! there, Robed in the hues and light of his lost skies! Behold in eddying wreaths how o'er him rise The sweat-the smoke-the steam of his wild breath Wrung from the efforts of his agonies: How lend they, darkening 'gainst the mountain heath, A horror to the scene-this strife of life and death! LXXXIII. Ah! yet, even on yon very brink of strife, How Beauty in her heavenliest sleep is lying: Talk'st thou of death? behold the Source of Life! See, how the flowers their sweetest breath are sighing, Mosses, and leaves, and trees to them replying, Nourished by this eternal cloud, which makes Oasis in the desert! nought is dying, Or sad in nature: 'tis our spirit takes Its gloom or light from scenes whose feeling it awakes. LXXXIV. Voice of the Desert! echo of the truth Which every leaf doth answer-fare thee well! Lo, how like Time in his immortal youth, Until, like settling age, with brow o'ercast, Thou glidest toward the Deep; stern Oracle! Well dost thou show our course of manhood past: Our race began like thine-be thine our rest at last! END OF CANTO II. |