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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Morning on the Andes

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79.

South America: Andes, the Mountains

Morning on the Andes

By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

(From The Missionary)

’T IS dawn;—the distant Andes’ rocky spires,

One after one, have caught the orient fires.

Where the dun condor shoots his upward flight,

His wings are touched with momentary light.

Meantime, beneath the mountains’ glittering heads,

A boundless ocean of gray vapor spreads,

That o’er the champaign, stretching far below,

Moves now, in clustered masses, rising slow,

Till all the living landscape is displayed

In various pomp of color, light, and shade,

Hills, forests, rivers, lakes, and level plain

Lessening in sunshine to the southern main.

The llama’s fleece fumes with ascending dew;

The gem-like humming-birds their toils renew;

And there, by the wild river’s devious side,

The tall flamingo, in its crimson pride,

Stalks on, in richest plumage bright arrayed,

With snowy neck superb, and legs of lengthening shade.