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III.— WHAT BEFELL IN THE ALPS.

Now entered we among that desert pile
That overhangs with steeps the Italian plain:
By many a craggy way and long defile
Ascending through the passes of the chain.
Hard was that voyage: colder grew the air;
On either hand the dark trees seemed in pain,
And strove their stiffened branches to upbear:
At every turn came forth the mountain mass,
Girded with pines, snow-wrapped, with brows severe:
But higher when we clomb the endless pass,
Then the locked mountains either hand that stood
Met knee to knee; and passage scarce there was.
Then, lest the hillmen who thereby abode
Should stay the march of larger company,
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Sir Mano bade us some to quit the road,
And them who kept it to go two and three;
The more, because the savage Saracens
Held stations on the side next Italy.
Wherefore along that Alpine region thence
We rode divided: Mano for his part
Turned sharply toward the nighest eminence;
And him I followed from the road apart,
Ascending steeply, with some few beside,
And slowly travelling the mountain swart.
Thus mounting to the top we gan to ride
O'er stony places clogged with frozen snow,
A dreadful desert, through the which no guide
Of kindly voice heartened our footsteps slow:
In clouds the pale sun hung, which more and more
Gathered, and caused a dusk o'er all to grow;
And the white waste changed colour: then down bore
Of thick and heavy snow a hideous fall,
Through which we went in blindness evermore.
Then each to other full of fear did call,
For every step was frightful in that waste,
Where prospect was obliterated all,
Nor now indeed knew we to halt or haste;
And painfully our trembling beasts we drew,
Which were by demons into terror cast,
Who with strange sounds and voices round us flew,
And opened chasms suddenly at our feet,
And stones against us from each quarter threw.
But God of all their malice made defeat,
For when for hours we had suffered this distress,
The darkness, and the storm that on us beat,
At last the fiends had spent their wickedness,
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And the blithe sun looked out on our array,
What time he sought the Hesperian recess:
He cast on us a golden beam full gay,
But darkened into blood-red, as he sank,
And left the heavens purple and curdled grey:
Then we refitted our equipments dank.
But, soon was turned to woe our brief delight.
Mano himself was missing from our rank,
Nor anywhere beheld we him in sight,
Nor search nor shout recovered him to us:
Upon our bootless toils came down the night,
And wrapped us on the summit ruinous.
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