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(Excerpt)
FAIRER scene the opening eye | |
| Of the day can scarce descry, | |
| Fairer sight he looks not on | |
| Than the pleasant banks of Rhone; | |
| Where in terraces and ranks, | 5 |
| On those undulating banks, | |
| Rise by many a hilly stair | |
| Sloping tiers of vines, where’er | |
| From the steep and stony soil | |
| Has been won by careful toil, | 10 |
| And with long, laborious pains | |
| Fenced against the washing rains,— | |
| Fenced and anxiously walled round, | |
| Some small patch of garden-ground. | |
| Higher still some place of power, | 15 |
| Or a solitary tower, | |
| Ruined now, is looking down | |
| On the quiet little town | |
| In a sheltered glen beneath, | |
| Where the smoke’s unbroken wreath, | 20 |
| Mounting in the windless air, | |
| Rests, dissolving slowly there, | |
| O’er the housetops like a cloud, | |
| Or a thinnest vaporous shroud. | |
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| Morn has been,—and lo! how soon | 25 |
| Has arrived the middle noon, | |
| And the broad sun’s rays do rest | |
| On some naked mountain’s breast, | |
| Where alone relieve the eye | |
| Massive shadows, as they lie | 30 |
| In the hollows motionless; | |
| Still our boat doth onward press: | |
| Now a peaceful current wide | |
| Bears it on an ample tide; | |
| Now the hills retire, and then | 35 |
| Their broad fronts advance again, | |
| Till the rocks have closed us round, | |
| And would seem our course to bound, | |
| But anon a path appears, | |
| And our vessel onward steers, | 40 |
| Darting rapidly between | |
| Narrow walls of a ravine. | |
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| Morn has been and noon,—and now | |
| Evening falls about our prow: | |
| Mid the clouds that kindling won | 45 |
| Light and fire from him, the Sun | |
| For a moment’s space was lying, | |
| Phœnix in his own flames dying! | |
| And a sunken splendor still | |
| Burns behind the western hill: | 50 |
| Lo! the starry troop again | |
| Gather on the ethereal plain; | |
| Even now and there were none, | |
| And a moment since but one; | |
| And anon we lift our head, | 55 |
| And all heaven is overspread | |
| With a still-assembling crowd, | |
| With a silent multitude,— | |
| Venus, first and brightest set | |
| In the night’s pale coronet, | 60 |
| Armed Orion’s belted pride, | |
| And the Seven that by the side | |
| Of the Titan nightly weave | |
| Dances in the mystic eve, | |
| Sisters linked in love and light. | 65 |
| ’T were in truth a solemn sight, | |
| Were we sailing now as they, | |
| Who upon their western way | |
| To the isles of spice and gold, | |
| Nightly watching, might behold | 70 |
| These our constellations dip, | |
| And the great sign of the Ship | |
| Rise upon the other hand, | |
| With the Cross, still seen to stand | |
| In the vault of heaven upright, | 75 |
| At the middle hour of night,— | |
| Or with them whose keels first prest | |
| The huge rivers of the West, | |
| Who the first with bold intent | |
| Down the Orellana went, | 80 |
| Or a dangerous progress won | |
| On the mighty Amazon, | |
| By whose ocean-streams they told | |
| Of the warrior-maidens bold. | |
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