Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.
Glengariff
By Sir Aubrey de Vere (1788–1846)How wonderful the contrast! Dark as night,
Here, amid cliffs and woods, with headlong might,
The black stream whirls, through ferns and drooping sedge,
’Neath twisted roots moss-brown, and weedy ledge,
Gushing. Aloft, from yonder birch-clad height,
Leaps into air a cataract, snow-white;
Falling to gulfs obscure. The mountain ridge,
Like a gray warder, guardian of the scene,
Above the cloven gorge gloomily towers.
O’er the dim woods a gathering tempest lours;
Save where athwart the moist leaves’ lucid green
A sunbeam, glancing through disparted showers,
Sparkles along the rill with diamond sheen!
The restless waves, resplendent in their glory,
Sweep glittering past yon purpled promontory,
Bright as Apollo’s breastplate. Bathed in gold,
Yon bastioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled,
Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoary
Veils those peaked hills, shapely as e’er in story,
Delphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old,
Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proud
The wildwood spreads its arms around the bay:
The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now bright,
Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light
To spectral shade; and each dissolving cloud
Reveals new mountains while it floats away.