And the pure glittering snow-realm, yet more high,
That seems a part of heaven’s eternity.
There is no track of man where Hamet stands,
Pathless the scene as Lybia’s desert sands;
Yet on the calm still air a sound is heard
Of distant voices, and the gathering-word
Of Islam’s tribes, now faint and fainter grown,
Now but the lingering echo of a tone.
That sound, whose cadence dies upon his ear,
He follows, reckless if his bands are near.