Poems with Fables in Prose By Frederic Herbert Trench |
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 | Poems with Fables in Prose |  |
IX
Alone he dreameth, ghostly sovranty—
A servant, fetter'd more than we,
But by acceptance free;
A tenuous presence, rime-cold, pale as rime,
Above the band of European cloud
Submerging like a slumber Italy,
The seven lakes, the cobweb cities proud,
The shadow Lombardy, the silt of time,
The march and countermarch of history—
The mountain waiteth, even as we.
A servant, fetter'd more than we,
But by acceptance free;
A tenuous presence, rime-cold, pale as rime,
Above the band of European cloud
Submerging like a slumber Italy,
The seven lakes, the cobweb cities proud,
The shadow Lombardy, the silt of time,
The march and countermarch of history—
The mountain waiteth, even as we.
Strahlhorn, Alphübel, Dom, and Allelin,
Phantom alps to the northward, shrink withdrawn
Away from orisons none dare disturb.
Southward his wilderness, tossed line beyond line—
Darkly surmised through heavy veil on veil—
Of toothèd basalts, bare of snow and pine.
Out over Orta's blind chasm giddily
Wings waver forth. No insect chirp sounds here,
No shred of whisper.
Phantom alps to the northward, shrink withdrawn
Away from orisons none dare disturb.
Southward his wilderness, tossed line beyond line—
Darkly surmised through heavy veil on veil—
Of toothèd basalts, bare of snow and pine.
Out over Orta's blind chasm giddily
Wings waver forth. No insect chirp sounds here,
No shred of whisper.
125
What clash of cymbal armies now again
Noised upward from their golden plain
On wings of victory released, could fill
Time with an exultation like that hill
While unto space the hill lifts up his voice?
Though his desolation put no vesture on
Of light, the memory of fire, nor emerges
The faintest brilliance from beyond the verges,
He keeps night-measure with the vanished sun,
And answers, to a yet immenser poise.
Noised upward from their golden plain
On wings of victory released, could fill
Time with an exultation like that hill
While unto space the hill lifts up his voice?
Though his desolation put no vesture on
Of light, the memory of fire, nor emerges
The faintest brilliance from beyond the verges,
He keeps night-measure with the vanished sun,
And answers, to a yet immenser poise.
Now shall our soul-mate, Liberty—
The rock-bred daughter of the lightnings—she
Cradled in welter of these peaks at war—
Conceive, at the arising of a star?
He waiteth, that grey shape, far up, aloof:
As the night-watchman, ten years on the roof
Of Agamemnon, till the beacons' joy
Mutter'd from sea to sea the fall of Troy—
The mountain waiteth, even as we.
The rock-bred daughter of the lightnings—she
Cradled in welter of these peaks at war—
Conceive, at the arising of a star?
He waiteth, that grey shape, far up, aloof:
As the night-watchman, ten years on the roof
Of Agamemnon, till the beacons' joy
Mutter'd from sea to sea the fall of Troy—
The mountain waiteth, even as we.
| Poems with Fables in Prose | |