Twelve weary days with unremitting speed,
Shunning frequented tracks, the travellers
Pursued their way; the mountain path they chose,
The forest or the lonely heath wide-spread,
Where cistus shrubs sole-seen exhaled at noon
Their fine balsamic odour all around;
Strew’d with their blossoms, frail as beautiful,
The thirsty soil at eve; and when the sun
Relumed the gladden’d earth, opening anew
Their stores exuberant, prodigal as frail,