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(From The Story of Rimini)
A HEAVY spot the forest looks at first, | |
| To one grim shade condemned, and sandy thirst, | |
| Checkered with thorns, and thistles run to seed, | |
| Or plashy pools half covered with green weed, | |
| About whose sides the swarming insects fry | 5 |
| In the hot sun, a noisome company; | |
| But, entering more and more, they quit the sand | |
| At once, and strike upon a grassy land, | |
| From which the trees as from a carpet rise | |
| In knolls and clumps, in rich varieties. | 10 |
| The knights are for a moment forced to rein | |
| Their horses in, which, feeling turf again, | |
| Thrill, and curvet, and long to be at large | |
| To scour the space, and give the winds a charge, | |
| Or, pulling tight the bridles as they pass, | 15 |
| Dip their warm mouths into the freshening grass: | |
| But soon in easy rank, from glade to glade, | |
| Proceed they, coasting underneath the shade; | |
| Some baring to the cool their placid brows, | |
| Some looking upward through the glimmering boughs, | 20 |
| Or peering into spots that inwardly | |
| Open green glooms, and half prepared to see | |
| The lady cross it, that, as stories tell, | |
| Ran loud and torn before a knight of hell. | |
| Various the trees and passing foliage here,— | 25 |
| Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper, | |
| With briony between in trails of white, | |
| And ivy, and the suckle’s streaky light, | |
| And moss, warm gleaming with a sudden mark, | |
| Like growths of sunshine left upon the bark; | 30 |
| And still the pine, flat-topped and dark and tall, | |
| In lordly right predominant o’er all. | |
| Anon the sweet birds, like a sudden throng | |
| Of happy children, ring their tangled song | |
| From out the greener trees; and then a cloud | 35 |
| Of cawing rooks breaks o’er them, gathering loud | |
| Like savages at ships; and then again | |
| Nothing is heard but their own stately train, | |
| Or ring-dove that repeats his pensive plea, | |
| Or startled gull up-screaming toward the sea. | 40 |
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