The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

At last he reached an elfin land,
A land where magic reigned supreme,
Fulfilled with shapes on every hand
More nondescript than shapes of dream;
For here (as Downing often told)
Titanic powwows, famed of old
Before Manitto lost his throne,
Had wrought their sorceries in stone.

Aloft, around, enchantments frowned,
Tall obelisk, colossal mound,
Rotunda, façade, temple-wall,
Keep, citadel, palatial hall,
Or endless burghs of spire and dome,
All sentinelled with imp and gnome,
Who scowled in flinty wrath or woe

To see the paleface tramp below.

Again, the desert glittered bright
With many colors, mingled stains,
Red, orange, purple, green and white,
Blue, sable, lilac, longdrawn veins,
That painted countless winding fells,
And beetling cliffs and herbless plains,
Or filled with witchcraft shadowy dells;
While here and there a magic wood
Of fallen stony trunks bestrewed
The vales with crimson jasper stems,
Or agate fit for diadems,
Or opal-tinted chalcedon:
The wizard-wolds of ages gone,
The wreck of primal hill and dale,
Swept down the wonder-stream of time
From hoary days of Saturn's prime
When monsters tracked the tender shale
And dragons soared above the slime.