Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FAREWELL TO ETNA, by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FAREWELL TO ETNA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Great mountain, swathed in blue with foamy crest
Last Line: May counsel with my soul to rival his.
Subject(s): Farewell; Mountains; Soul; Tears; Parting; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


Great mountain, swathed in blue with foamy crest
Of fire, majestic as the mighty sea,
Thy brother and immortal comrade close,
The stars except, sole comrade fitting, equal --
Only, perhaps, as dust upon the wind
Shall I behold again thy spreading might.
Yet no regret is mine. I have thee in
My soul, though lodgment base, where room the stars
And many a tide of vestal-footed ocean.
Nor waste I tears that now the Cyclops brood
Is dead, and never hoarse, heroic blast
Shall hurl again in white and purple yeast
Odysseus and the dark-eyed mariners.
Nor foe of gods nor friend thy splendor saw
Than now more dark, more high majestical.
Thy color of solemnity doth stain
The temporal and wayward thing I house.
But if, when I am sown upon the air,
Another, seeing thee against the sunken sun
In folds of wine-dark gauze and amethyst,
Should rise to exaltation more superb
Than mine, and praise with loftier flight of soul
Thy splendor that to-night is all my own --
That were regret! Lend me thy purple thought,
Eternal brooding vigilant, that I
May counsel with my soul to rival his.





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