| |
(From The Witch of Atlas)
AND down the streams which clove those mountains vast | |
| Around their inland islets, and amid | |
| The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast | |
| Darkness and odors, and a pleasure hid | |
| In melancholy gloom, the pinnace past; | 5 |
| By many a star-surrounded pyramid | |
| Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky, | |
| And caverns yawning round unfathomably. | |
| |
| The silver noon into that winding dell, | |
| With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, | 10 |
| Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; | |
| A green and glowing light, like that which drops | |
| From folded lilies in which glowworms dwell, | |
| When earth over her face night’s mantle wraps; | |
| Between the severed mountains lay on high | 15 |
| Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. * * * * * | |
| And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud | |
| Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: | |
| Now lingering on the pools, in which abode | |
| The calm and darkness of the deep content | 20 |
| In which they paused; now o’er the shallow road | |
| Of white and dancing waters all besprent | |
| With sands and polished pebbles: mortal boat | |
| In such a shallow rapid could not float. | |
| |
