Precipitate; here roaring among crags, It leaps and foams and whirls and hurries on. Grey alders here and bushy hazels hid The mossy side; their wreath’d and knotted feet Bared by the current, now against its force Repaying the support they found, upheld The bank secure. Here, bending to the stream, The birch fantastic stretch’d its rugged trunk, Tall and erect from whence, as from their base, Each like a tree, its silver branches grew. The cherry here hung for the birds of heaven Its rosy fruit on high. The elder there Its purple berries o’er the water bent, Heavily hanging. Here, amid the brook, Grey as the stone to which it clung, half root, Half trunk, the young ash rises from the rock; And there its parent lifts a lofty head, And spreads its graceful boughs; the passing wind With twinkling motion lifts the silent leaves, And shakes its rattling tufts. Soon had the Prince Behind him left the farthest dwelling-place Of man; no fields of waving corn were here, Nor wicker storehouse for the autumnal grain, Vineyard, nor bowery fig, nor fruitful grove; Only the rocky vale, the mountain stream, Incumbent crags, and hills that over hills Arose on either hand, here hung with woods, Here rich with heath, that o’er some smooth ascent Its purple glory spread, or golden gorse; Bare here, and striated with many a hue, Scored by the wintry rain; by torrents here Riven, and with overhanging rocks abrupt. Pelayo, upward as he cast his eyes Where crags loose-hanging o’er the narrow pass Impended, there beheld his country’s strength Insuperable, and in his heart rejoiced. Oh that the Musselman were here, he cried, With all his myriads! While thy day endures, Moor! thou may’st lord it in the plains; but here Hath Nature for the free and brave prepared A sanctuary, where no oppressor’s power, No might of human tyranny can pierce.