LXII.

Is of another temper, and I roam
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles
The host between the mountains and the shore,
Where Courage falls in her despairing files,

And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore,

Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd

o'er,

LXIII.

Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds;
And such the storm of battle on this day,
And such the phrensy, whose convulsion blinds
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray,
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away! (35)
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet;

Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet!

LXIV.

The Earth to them was as a rolling bark Which bore them to Eternity; they saw The Ocean round, but had no time to mark The motions of their vessel; Nature's law, In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the bird Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herd Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath n words.

LXV.

Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;

Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en-
A little rill of scanty stream and bed—

A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead

Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling water

red.

LXVI.

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave (36)
Of the most living crystal that was e'er

The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave

Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters!

And most serene of aspect, and most clear; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughtersA mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

LXVII.

And on thy happy shore a temple still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
Upon a mild declivity of hill,

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails

Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling

tales.

LXVIII.

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! If through the air a zephyr more serene Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace Along his margin a more eloquent green, If on the heart the freshness of the scene Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust Of weary life a moment lave it clean With Nature's baptism,-'tis to him ye must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.

LXIX.

The roar of waters!-from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;

The fall of waters! rapid as the light

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

LXX.

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald:-how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

LXXI.

To the broad column which rolls on, and show's

More like the fountain of an infant sea

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes

Of a new world, than only thus to be

Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,

With many windings, through the vale :-Look back! Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread,—a matchless cataract, (37)