Sending up bursts of black clouds in the air, With rolling smoke of pitch, and flashing sparks, And globes of flame that lick the very stars. Then, from the bowels of the mountain torn, Huge stones are hurled, and melted rocks heaped up, A roaring flood of fire. 'Tis said that here Enceladus, half blasted by the bolts
Of heaven, was thrust beneath the mountainous mass; And mighty Etna, piled above, sends forth His fiery breathings from the broken flues; And every time he turns his weary sides, All Sicily groans and trembles, and the sky Is wreathed in smoke.
Virgil. Tr. C. P. Cranch.
TEAR Sicily and Æolian Lipari
An island rises steep, with smoking rocks. Beneath, by huge Cyclopean forges scooped And eaten out, the vast Etnean caves Thunder, and mighty anvil-strokes are heard; And all the caverns roar and hiss, with blasts Of fiery steel, from panting furnaces. The abode of Vulcan this, lending its name To the surrounding soil. Here from on high The fire-god lights. Below, the Cyclops toil Over their forges: Brontes, Steropes,
And naked-limbed Pyracmon.
Virgil. Tr. C. P. Cranch.
OW gracious is the mountain at this hour!
A thousand times have I been here alone Or with the revellers from the mountain towns, But never on so fair a morn; - the sun Is shining on the brilliant mountain-crests, And on the highest pines; but further down Here in the valley is in shade; the sward
Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs; One sees one's footprints crushed in the wet grass, One's breath curls in the air; and on these pines That climb from the stream's edge, the long gray tufts, Which the goats love, are jewelled thick with dew.
The noon is hot; when we have crossed the stream We shall have left the woody tract, and come Upon the open shoulder of the hill.
See how the giant spires of yellow bloom
Of the sun-loving gentian, in the heat,
Are shining on those naked slopes like flame! Let us rest here.
The track winds down to the clear stream To cross the sparkling shallows; there The cattle love to gather, on their way To the high mountain pastures, and to stay Till the rough cow-herds drive them past, Knee-deep in the cool ford; for 't is the last
Of all the woody, high, well-watered dells On Etna; and the beam
Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs Down its steep verdant sides; the air
Is freshened by the leaping stream, which throws Eternal showers of spray on the mossed roots Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells Of hyacinths, and on late anemones, That muffle its wet banks; but glade And stream and sward and chestnut-trees End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare Of the hot noon, without a shade,
Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare; The peak round which the white clouds play.
UNDER Mount Etna he lies,
It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise, And above him the lurid skies Are hot with his fiery breath.
The crags are piled on his breast, The earth is heaped on his head; But the groans of his wild unrest, Though smothered and half suppressed, Are heard, and he is not dead.
And the nations far away
Are watching with eager eyes; They talk together and say, "To-morrow, perhaps to-day, Enceladus will arise!"
And the old gods, the austere Oppressors in their strength, Stand aghast and white with fear At the ominous sounds they hear, And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"
Ah me! for the land that is sown With the harvest of despair! Where the burning cinders, blown From the lips of the overthrown Enceladus, fill the air.
Where ashes are heaped in drifts Over vineyard and field and town, Whenever he starts and lifts
His head through the blackened rifts Of the crags that keep him down.
See, see the red light shines!
'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!
And the storm-wind shouts through the pines Of Alps and of Apennines,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Euganean Hills.
THE EUGANEAN HILLS.
the mountains Euganean,
I stood listening to the pæan
With which the legioned rooks did hail The sun's uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar, Through the dewy mist they soar
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, Flecked with fire and azure, lie In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain, Starred with drops of golden rain, Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes
On the morning's fitful gale Through the broken mist they sail; And the vapors cloven and gleaming Follow down the dark steep streaming, Till all is bright and clear and still Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair.
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