Page:John William Polidori - The Vampyre.djvu/17

Rh But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers thro' her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud!

And this is in the night:—Most glorious night! Thou wer't not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy far and fierce delight,— A portion of the tempest and of me! How the lit lake shines a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black,—and now the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth,

Now where the swift Rhine cleaves his way between Heights which appear, as lovers who have parted In haste, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, tho' broken hearted; Tho' in their souls which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of the fond rage Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed— Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winter—war within themselves to wage.

I went down to the little port, if I may use the expression, wherein his vessel used to lay, and conversed with the cottager, who had the care of it. You may smile, but I have my pleasure in thus helping my personification of