Softer than velvet, hid what savage hearts!
At noon they saw, beside the road, a gash
Rending the sunlit skin of that green peace;
An old abandoned quarry, half overgrown
With ferns, and masked by boughs.
They left the road
And looked at it. Volcanic rock! A flood
Of frozen lava!
They marked its glossy blackness, the rough cords
And wrinkles where, as the fiery waves congealed,