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HOW gracious is the mountain at this hour! | |
| A thousand times have I been here alone | |
| Or with the revellers from the mountain towns, | |
| But never on so fair a morn;—the sun | |
| Is shining on the brilliant mountain-crests, | 5 |
| And on the highest pines; but further down | |
| Here in the valley is in shade; the sward | |
| Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs; | |
| One sees one’s footprints crushed in the wet grass, | |
| One’s breath curls in the air; and on these pines | 10 |
| That climb from the stream’s edge, the long gray tufts, | |
| Which the goats love, are jewelled thick with dew. * * * * * | |
| The noon is hot; when we have crossed the stream | |
| We shall have left the woody tract, and come | |
| Upon the open shoulder of the hill. | 15 |
| See how the giant spires of yellow bloom | |
| Of the sun-loving gentian, in the heat, | |
| Are shining on those naked slopes like flame! | |
| Let us rest here. * * * * * | |
| The track winds down to the clear stream | 20 |
| To cross the sparkling shallows; there | |
| The cattle love to gather, on their way | |
| To the high mountain pastures, and to stay | |
| Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, | |
| Knee-deep in the cool ford; for ’t is the last | 25 |
| Of all the woody, high, well-watered dells | |
| On Etna; and the beam | |
| Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs | |
| Down its steep verdant sides; the air | |
| Is freshened by the leaping stream, which throws | 30 |
| Eternal showers of spray on the mossed roots | |
| Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots | |
| Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells | |
| Of hyacinths, and on late anemones, | |
| That muffle its wet banks; but glade | 35 |
| And stream and sward and chestnut-trees | |
| End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare | |
| Of the hot noon, without a shade, | |
| Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare; | |
| The peak round which the white clouds play. | 40 |
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