His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.

Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh.

Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats,

And foams unbounded with the mashy flood;

That by degrees fermented, and refined,

Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy:

The claret smooth, red as the lip we press

In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl;

The mellow-tasted burgundy; and quick,

As is the wit it gives, the gay champagne.

Now, by the cool declining year condensed,

Descend the copious exhalations, check'd

As up the middle sky unseen they stole,

And roll the doubling fogs around the hill.

No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,

Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides,

And high between contending kingdoms rears

The rocky long division, fills the view

With great variety; but in a night

Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense

Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far,

The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain:

Vanish the woods: the dim-seen river seems

Sullen, and slow, to roll the misty wave.

E'en in the height of noon oppress'd, the sun

Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted ray;

Whence glaring oft, with many a broaden'd orb,

He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth,

Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life

Objects appear; and, wilder'd, o'er the waste

The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last

Wreath'd dun around, in deeper circles still

Successive closing, sits the general fog

Unbounded o'er the world; and, mingling thick,

A formless grey confusion covers all.

As when of old (so sung the Hebrew Bard)

Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged

Its infant way; nor Order yet had drawn

His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.

These roving mists, that constant now begin

To smoke along the hilly country, these,

With weightier rains, and melted Alpine snows,

The mountain-cisterns fill, those ample stores

Of water, scoop'd among the hollow rocks;

Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play,

And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw.

Some sages say, that, where the numerous wave

For ever lashes the resounding shore,

Drill'd through the sandy stratum, every way,

The waters with the sandy stratum rise;

Amid whose angles infinitely strain'd,

They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind,

And clear and sweeten as they soak along.

Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still,

Though oft amidst the irriguous vale it springs;

But to the mountain courted by the sand,

That leads it darkling on in faithful maze,

Far from the parent-main, it boils again

Fresh into day; and all the glittering hill

Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain

Amusive dream! why should the waters love

To take so far a journey to the hills,

When the sweet valleys offer to their toil

Inviting quiet, and a nearer bed?

Or if by blind ambition led astray,

They must aspire; why should they sudden stop

Among the broken mountain's rushy dells,

And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert

The attractive sand that charm'd their course so long?

Besides, the hard agglomerating salts,

The spoil of ages, would impervious choke

Their secret channels; or, by slow degrees,

High as the hills protrude the swelling vales:

Old Ocean too, suck'd through the porous globe,

Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed,

And brought Deucalion's watery times again.

Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs,

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 388