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Ranolf and Amohia

II

II.

In sunshine stretching lightly o'er
The Lake's far end from shore to shore,
page 300 Long stripes of gauze-like awning lay—
In stripes serene and white as they,
Repeated on its bright blue floor:
And many a rocky rugged bluff,
With crimson-blossoming boscage rough,
O'er beetling crest and crevice flung;—
White cliff or dark-green hill afar
With patches bleached of scarp and scar—
Stood boldly forward sunrise-fired,
Or back in sun-filled mist retired.
Untrembling, round the glistering rim
Of that expanse of blooming blue,
From headland bright or inlet's brim,
Long fringes of reflection hung.
Tts ramparts stretched along the sky.
One mighty Mountain reared on high
Far o'er the rest a level crest,
With jutting rounded parapet
And rude rock-corbels rough-beset,
Half-blurred by time and tempest's fret;
While smooth its slopes came sweeping down
From that abraded cornice brown.
The mountain this, the ruddy steep,
That Ranolf, sun-awaked from sleep,
So longed to scale; and high in air
In glad imagination share
Its sky-possessing majesty
Of haughty isolation!—there
Into each dark recess to pry
And every sight and secret see
Its lofty level might reveal,
Or those grim fissures' depths conceal,
That split the Mountain into three.
page 301 About the heights, soft clouds, a few,
Clung here and there like floating flue;
Like helpless sea-birds breeze-bereft,
Unmoving spread their pinions white—
From jutting crag, deep-bathed in light,
To slip away in snowy flight;
Or closely crouched in shadowy cleft,
Like lambing ewes the flock has left.
Below, o'erjoyed at darkness fleeing,
Reviving Nature woke again
To all the exceeding bliss of being!
The minnows leapt the liquid plain
In shoals—each silvery-shivering train,
A sudden dash of sprinkled rain!
The wild-ducks' black and tiny fleet
Shot in-and-out their shy retreat;
The cormorant left his crowded tree
And stretched his tinselled neck for sea;
All Nature's feathered favourites poured
To their adored undoubted Lord
Of light and heat, accordance sweet
Of pure impassioned revelry;
And honey-bird and mocking-bird
And he of clearest melody,
The blossom-loving bell-bird—each
Delicious-throated devotee
In happy ignorance framed to be
Content with rapture—longing-free
For life or love they cannot reach—
Like chimes rich-tuned, to heaven preferred
The praise of their mellifluous glee;
Each lurking lyrist of the grove
With all his might sung all his love;
page 302 Till every foliage-filled ravine
And bower of amaranthine green
Rang persevering ecstasy.