The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme The witch of Shiloh, the last of the Wampanoags, the gentle earl, the enchanted voyage |
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The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | ||
XXXIX
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.
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.
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
94
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.
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.
The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | ||