“I did but ope one solemn book, and say: ‘O, ye Hydraulic Goblins of the mountains, At once your tunnels, pumps, and flooms let play; And loose old Himmalah’s rock-bound fountains.’ Then rivers of cold foam and spouting spray, And cataracts which broke the cliffs away, Burst from the mountains’ inner reservoirs. ’Twas very good to see those watery Druids Destroy that haughty host, with roaring fluids!” . . . . . . _But now, those noisy trumpeters, the Hours,_ _Blew the reveillé through the camps of morn:_ _Now storm-girt Taurus raised his icy horn,_ _Like blazing silver_, o’er the mists and showers; And sunlight struck the unclouded mountain towers, Which ranged the circuit of that snowy wall: We then rode down a chasm from the gates, And entered Elpholen’s enchanted states. To a wild amphitheatre we rode, Begirt with precipices. From an astounding Cavern in the mountain-side, there flowed A river deep and broad; but the surrounding Dark hollows echoed not a single sounding; For silently it moved—_we only heard_ _At times the plunging of some dull cascade_ _Far up the tunnel, like a cannonade._ Full many other rivers cross those lands, Some, from the eternal snows come pouring; Some, roll around the chasms, in foaming bends; Some, through the hills, a ragged highway boring, Rush to the valleys, with an angry roaring, And hurry onward to the ocean sands; But many a cataract and runlet trickles Down from the glaciers, making huge icicles. _We moved along by wooded peaks and crags,_ _Carvéd with images and hieroglyphs,_ _Ruffling their scales and quills like golden flags,_ _And, pawing their odd cubs, the hippogriffs_ _Rolled in their nests, upon the shady cliffs;_ _And in the glens, both bears and royal stags,_ _With lazy lions, goats, and yawning leopards_ _Like cattle lay, and children were their shepherds._ Along through ancient forests, vast, and slumbrous, Roes, of the mountain, grazed beside the springs, And often rose some bird of plumage cumbrous Unto the branches, folding his wide wings. There, too, were tombs of certain wizard-kings— Antediluvians of visage sombrous— _And holy men, before their moss-grown crypts,_ _Studied in awful Syriac manuscripts._ Beyond, there dwelleth an immortal folk, About a stream, which to a lake enlarges: Pine hills curve greenly round, and groves of oak, Sometimes they rested on the river marges, Sometimes they plowed the lake in hollow barges, And sometimes, on the altars made _sweet_ smoke, Some painted pictures in their pleasant tents, And many played on all stringed instruments.