LXVI.

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave (36)

Of the most living crystal that was e'er

The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters!

And most serene of aspect, and most clear;
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters-
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

LXVII.

And on thy happy shore a temple still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
Upon a mild declivity of hill,

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails

Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.

LXVIII.

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place!
If through the air a zephyr more serene
Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
Along his margin a more eloquent green,
If on the heart the freshness of the scene
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
Of weary life a moment lave it clean

With Nature's baptism,-'tis to him ye
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.

LXIX.

must

The roar of waters!-from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;

The fall of waters! rapid as the light

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

LXX.

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again

Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald:-how profound
The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,

Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

LXXI.

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows

More like the fountain of an infant sea

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes

Of a new world, than only thus to be

Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,

With many windings, through the vale:-Look back! Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track,

Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cataract, (37)

LXXII.

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, (38)
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn

Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

LXXIII.

Once more upon the woody Apennine,

The infant Alps, which-had I not before

Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine

Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar
The thundering lauwine-might be worshipp'd more; (39)
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear

Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar

Glaciers of bleak Mont-Blanc both far and near,

And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,

LXXIV.

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly

Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame,
For still they soar'd unutterably high:
I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
Athos, Olympus, Etna, Atlas, made
These hills seem things of lesser dignity,

All, save the lone Soracte's height, display'd

Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

LXXV.

For our remembrance, and from out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain
May he, who will, his recollections rake
And quote in classic raptures, and awake

The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd

Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,

The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word (40)

In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record