Like some vast army on the Appenines,
With all the bright artillery of war,
Banners of painted clouds, with proud designs,
Helmets and jeweled shields along the glitt’ring lines.
Below me slept a valley, with its fields
O’erflowing with the ripe and yellow corn:
And harvesters, whose distance-mellowed peals
Of laughter touched the ear, as echoes borne
At vesper hour from some far Alpine horn,
Reclined, at length, beside a narrow stream