| |
| MOUNT of the clouds; on whose Olympian height | |
| The tall rocks brighten in the ether air, | |
| And spirits from the skies come down at night, | |
| To chant immortal songs to Freedom there! | |
| Thine is the rock of other regions; where | 5 |
| The world of life which blooms so far below | |
| Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes appear, | |
| Save where with silvery flash the waters flow | |
| Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow. | |
| |
| Thine is the summit where the clouds repose, | 10 |
| Or eddying wildly round thy cliffs are borne; | |
| When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws | |
| His billowy mist amid the thunder’s home! | |
| Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come, | |
| And bow the forest as they sweep along; | 15 |
| While roaring deeply from their rocky womb | |
| The storms come forth—and hurrying darkly on, | |
| Amid the echoing peaks the revelry prolong! | |
| |
| And when the tumult of the air is fled, | |
| And quench’d in silence all the tempest flame, | 20 |
| There come the dim forms of the mighty dead, | |
| Around the steep which bears the hero’s name. | |
| The stars look down upon them—and the same | |
| Pale orb that glistens o’er his distant grave, | |
| Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame, | 25 |
| And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave— | |
| The richest, purest tear, that memory ever gave! | |
| |
| Mount of the clouds! when winter round thee throws | |
| The hoary mantle of the dying year, | |
| Sublime amid the canopy of snows, | 30 |
| Thy towers in bright magnificence appear! | |
| ’T is then we view thee with a chilling fear, | |
| Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue; | |
| When lo! in soften’d grandeur, far, yet clear, | |
| Thy battlements stand clothed in heaven’s own hue, | 35 |
| To swell as Freedom’s home on man’s unbounded view! | |
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