Are as green as the forest's night:
Outspeeding the shark,

And the sword-fish dark,

Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rifts

Of the mountain clifts

They passed to their Dorian home.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap

From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below

And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep

In the rocking deep

Beneath the Ortygian shore;

Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky

When they love but live no more.

Shelley.

TWO VOICES.

WO Voices are there; one is of the sea,

Two

One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:

In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee

Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven:
Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft :
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;
For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
That Mountain floods should thunder as before,
And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!

Wordsworth

FREEDOM.

F old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field

To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal'd The fulness of her face

Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
And King-like, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth.

The wisdom of a thousand years

Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams,

Turning to scorn with lips divine

The falsehood of extremes !

L

CALVANO.

AST eve, I rode over the mountains;
Your brother, my guide,

Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles

That offered, each side,

Tennyson.

Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious, —

Or strip from the sorbs

A treasure, so rosy and wondrous,

Of hairy gold orbs!

But my mule picked his sure, sober path out,

Just stopping to neigh

When he recognized down in the valley

His mates on their way

With the fagots, and barrels of water;

And soon we emerged

From the plain, where the woods could scarce

follow;

. And still as we urged

Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,

As up still we trudged

Though the wild path grew wilder each instant, And place was e'en grudged

'Mid the rock-chasms, and piles of loose stones (Like the loose broken teeth

Of some monster, which climbed there to die
From the ocean beneath)

Place was grudged to the silver-gray fume-weed

That clung to the path,

And dark rosemary, ever a-dying,

That, 'spite the wind's wrath,

So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,

And lentisks as stanch

To the stone where they root and bear berries, And . . . what shows a branch

Coral-colored, transparent, with circlets

Of pale seagreen leaves

Over all trod my mule with the caution

Of gleaners o'er sheaves,

Still, foot after foot like a lady –

So, round after round,

He climbed to the top of Calvano,

And God's own profound

Was above me, and round me the mountains,

And under, the sea,

And within me, my heart to bear witness

What was and shall be!

Oh heaven, and the terrible crystal!
No rampart excludes

Your eye from the life to be lived

In the blue solitudes!

Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
Still moving with you

For, ever some new head and breast of them

Thrusts into view

To observe the intruder

you see it

If quickly you turn

And, before they escape you, surprise them—
They grudge you should learn

How the soft plains they look on, lean over,

And love (they pretend)

- Cower beneath them; the flat sea-pine crouches,

The wild fruit-trees bend,

E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut

All is silent and grave —

'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty

How fair, but a slave!

Robert Browning.