Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79. | | | | Glengariff | | Glengariff | | Sir Aubrey de Vere (1788–1846) |
| | I. GAZING from each low bulwark of this bridge, | |
| How wonderful the contrast! Dark as night, | |
| Here, amid cliffs and woods, with headlong might, | |
| The black stream whirls, through ferns and drooping sedge, | |
| ’Neath twisted roots moss-brown, and weedy ledge, | 5 |
| Gushing. Aloft, from yonder birch-clad height, | |
| Leaps into air a cataract, snow-white; | |
| Falling to gulfs obscure. The mountain ridge, | |
| Like a gray warder, guardian of the scene, | |
| Above the cloven gorge gloomily towers. | 10 |
| O’er the dim woods a gathering tempest lours; | |
| Save where athwart the moist leaves’ lucid green | |
| A sunbeam, glancing through disparted showers, | |
| Sparkles along the rill with diamond sheen! | |
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II. A SUN-BURST on the bay! Turn and behold! | 15 |
| The restless waves, resplendent in their glory, | |
| Sweep glittering past yon purpled promontory, | |
| Bright as Apollo’s breastplate. Bathed in gold, | |
| Yon bastioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled, | |
| Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoary | 20 |
| Veils those peaked hills, shapely as e’er in story, | |
| Delphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old, | |
| Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proud | |
| The wildwood spreads its arms around the bay: | |
| The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now bright, | 25 |
| Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light | |
| To spectral shade; and each dissolving cloud | |
| Reveals new mountains while it floats away. | | | | |
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