Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en— A little rill of scanty stream and bed A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain; And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red. But thou, Clitumnus ! in thy sweetest wave 33 Of the most living crystal that was e'er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear And most serene of aspect, and most clear ; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters A mirror and a bath, for Beauty's youngest daughters ! LXVII. And on thy happy shore a temple still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails Down where the shallower wave, still tells its bubbling tales. LXVIII. Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! If through the air o zephyr more serene Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust Of weary With Nature's baptism,-'tis to him ye must The roar of waters !-from the headlong height The fall of waters ! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Is an eternal April to the ground, Making it all one emerald :-how profound The gulf! and how the giant element 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 3. LXXI. To the broad column which rolls on, and shows More like the fountain of an infant sea Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Of a new world, than only thus to be Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, With many windings, through the vale :-Look back! 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, 34 LXXII. Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris, sits amidst the infernal surge, 35 Its steady dyes, while all around is torn Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which-had I not before The thundering LAUWINE-might be worshipp'd more; 36 But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear And in Chimari heard, the thunder-hills of fear, Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, For still they soared unutterably high: These hills seem things of lesser dignity, For our remembrance, and from out the plain Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word 37 In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record LXXVI. Aught that recals the daily drug which turn'd My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, By the impatience of my early thought, My mind could relish what it might have sought, If free to choose, I cannot now restore Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. LXXVII Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so, Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul ! Lone mother of dead empires! and controul In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance? Come and sce hear the owl, and pled your way The cypress, O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye! Whose agonies are evils of a day A world is at our feet, as fragile as our clay. |