“Is a temple all whose glories
“To our Maker’s fame bear witness,
“Sun and moon and stars all hanging
“In its cupola as lamps.”
Well and good, my worthy people!
Yet confess that in this temple
Are the stairs uncomfortable,
Bad and inconvenient stairs!
All this up-and-down-stairs going,
Mountain-climbing and this jumping
Over rocks is very tiring
To the legs as well as spirit.
Close beside me walk’d Lascaro,
Pale and lanky, like a taper;
Never spoke he, never laugh’d he,
He, the dead son of the sorc’ress.
Yes, ’tis said that he’s a dead man,
Dead long since, but yet his mother
Old Uraca’s magic science
Kept him living in appearance.—
That accursèd temple-staircase!
It exceeds my comprehension
How my neck escaped from breaking,
Stumbling o’er a precipice.
How the cataracts were shrieking!
How the tempest flogg’d the fir-trees
Till they howl’d! The clouds began too
Crashing suddenly—bad weather!
In a little fishing cottage
By the Lac-de-Gobe soon found we
Shelter and some trout for luncheon;
Most delicious were the latter.
In an arm-chair was reclining,
Ill and grey, the ferryman;
On him his two pretty nieces,
Like a pair of angels, waited.
Stoutish angels, rather Flemish,
Seeming from a frame descended
Of a Rubens; gold their tresses,
Full of health their eyes, and liquid.