Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/101

Rh Nurtured of old in famed Cilicia's cave,

Now whelm'd in black Tartarean darkness lies.

Cumæ's sea-girdled shores below,

And where Sicilia's waters flow,

Crush'd by the island's weight, impress'd

Upon the rebel's shaggy breast,

Ætna his giant form restrains,

Whose towering height the cloud sustains,

Nurse of the sharp perennial snow.

Forth from her inmost caverns urge their way

Fountains of pure and unapproached fire,

Rivers of smoke that blot the face of day,

And from their source of lurid flame aspire.

But flashes of bright hue illume

The horrors of nocturnal gloom;

And hurl the rocks with thundering sound,

Whelm'd in the watery gulf profound.

The restless monster from his burning seat

Sends up to heaven the springs of direst heat;

And strikes with mute surprise their eye and ear

Who see the wondrous fire, and sounds prodigious hear.

So close his pinion'd form is bound

Beneath dark Ætna's leafy head;

Supported on the rugged ground,

While all his back is torn, reclining on that bed.