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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


FAREWELL TO ETNA by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY

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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