And play i’ the plighted clouds.”
I stand wrapt in mute visions, growing into the majesty of the mountains. I spurn Decay and Time. I share the enduring strength, and carry lightly the burden of centuries.
The mountains swell up around me like a sea with billows. My footfall is inaudible, and I fleet to and fro like the unbodied soul of a great poet that makes the worlds it sees. There are no furrows on this soil: the curse has not fallen here. The sweat of the brow has not dropped here, nor aught save the rain and the dew of heaven. I am still nearer to the angels, and my spirit begins to put forth unaccustomed wings.
The ancient gods still linger here, and Antiquity has not yet grown old. The world has not yet heard “the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” nor has Paul yet preached. Here I am a devout Pagan. I am the friend of Plato; I remember the voice of Socrates. I worship the Gods reverently, and have come up hither with sacrifice according to the voice of the oracle.
I have drunk with the muses at this fountain. Here, under the hanging ivy from the rock, I behold the real Castaly; and wherever the stream may wander, it will carry music on its way from divinest voices. From this clump I have listened to Apollo teaching the shepherds. Yea, I feel my veins tingling with a more celestial liquor; I own invulnerable limbs, and am myself a God!
It was not Mercury, but I, who passed swiftly down yon green declivity with feathered feet, and away over the hill-tops like the shadow of a cloud. Those cattle brousing in the thicket, far down the ravine, I stole from Pieria. I bear the imperial mandates, and the breeze carries the sound of my eloquence through all the forests.
But I aspire to loftier seats. This is the high Olympus; Saturn is baffled, and immortal Jove laughs at the terrible prophecies of the enduring Titan. Let him rend his rivets. Let him melt the heart of Caucasus, or appease the Vulture! Would that I could as easily escape the reproaches of Juno, or overcome Danäe! But it shall rain gold to-morrow in her lap, and Leda shall fondle in her snowier bosom a snowy swan. Meanwhile let the nectar be poured! The laughing gods surround me, and I know immortal vigour. How Mercury jeered at the grinning Vulcan erewhile as he writhed his iron sinews, when I held him over the edge of heaven! Here I compel the clouds around me; I sit throned, and thunder.
Lo! to my ears comes up a solemn strain, and the Eagle shrieks and flies. The thunderbolt withers from my hand:—
“The Oracles are dumb;