Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and with From their down-toppling nests; and bel ing herds

Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's d hath no words.

LXV.

Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
Lay where their roots are; but a brook

ta'en

A little rill of scanty stream and bed A name of blood from that day's sanguine r And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwi waters red.

LXVI.

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest way Of the most living crystal that was e'er The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and la Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou

rear

Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-w

steer

Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! And most serene of aspect, and most clea

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 must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.

LXIX.

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, yields 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,

LXXII.

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge

From side to side, beneath the glittering

morn,

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,

Like Hope upon a deathbed, 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 whère roar
The thundering lauwine might be wor-

shipp'd more;

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.

The 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, Ætna, 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