WHEN August and the sultry summer's drouth Parch all the plains and pale the mountain-tops Where thick the pasture springs, Unchanged, our valley sloping to the south Is greener than the Irish isle, and drops With waterfalls and springs. The meadows by the river, tall with flowers, The fountain leaping from the rocks above, The simple ways of man, The farms and forests of this vale of ours, Are such, methinks, as gods and shepherds love, And wait the flute of Pan. The vale has seen unchanged a thousand years Or more, and Mercury might wander back And find, the same Auverne, And greet the hollows of the mountain meres Where round the crater's brim the rocks are black Amid the beds of fern. For neither he nor I have ever seen The lava rushing from the crater's edge, The rocks cast up like foam; Though somewhile, as I dreamed amid the green, I thought I saw, beyond the cypress-hedge, Those torrents blast my home. Fire, flood, fierce earthquakes of an elder world, Red flames and smoke of swirling lava streams, Tempests of ash and snow, Whereby the rock I stand upon was hurl'd Down hither, oft ye haunt, ye haunt my dreams, O storms of long ago! That FORCE unchain'd, volcanic, belching fire, Which shook the mountains then, and filled the coombs With groaning tongues of flame, Where is it? Still, they say, as dread, as dire, Sprung undiminished from a world of tombs, It dwells in us the same. And yet how tranquil sleeps the mountain now! The water runnels trace their crystal rings And, thro' the grasses, gleam; The tawny oxen pull the trident plough And turn the soil, while soft the farmer sings To cheer the straining team. How tranquil smiles the valley, broad and clam! Those elemental energies of old Swoon they indeed beneath? Whisper, O wind, made sweet with musk and balm; O sunset, rain an influence in thy gold; Answer, O cirrus-wreath! Nay, thou shalt be mine answer, vale of rest That wast so wild and art so beautiful: Behold, I understand... As waterfalls, that clear the mountain crest In torrents, fill the runnels clear and full That nourish all our land; So, through a myriad channels, bound in peace And fruitful, runs the Force of primitive fire, Divided and divine: The unnumbered travail of our earth's increase, The lives of men who toil, foresee, aspire, The growth of grain and vine; The patient oxen ploughing through the clod, The very dragonflies about the stream, The larks that sing and soar, Employ the force of that tremendous God Who lurks behind our thought, beyond our dream, And whom the worlds adore. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER TWO YEARS by RICHARD ALDINGTON THE ROAD TO AVIGNON by AMY LOWELL SONNET: 130 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WE ARE SEVEN by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 17. ON A SERMON AGAINST GLORY by MARK AKENSIDE THE PRODIGAL'S BROTHER SPEAKS by BESS SAMUEL AYRES |