Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/211

 And Vallombrosa, we two went to see Last June, beloved companion,—where sublime The mountains live in holy families, And the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb Half up their breasts; just stagger as they seize Some grey crag—drop back with it many a time, And straggle blindly down the precipice! The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick That June-day, knee-deep, with dead beechen leaves, As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick, And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves Are all the same too: scarce they have changed the wick On good St. Gualbert's altar, which receives The convent's pilgrims; and the pool in front. Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait The beatific vision, and the grunt Used at refectory, keeps its weedy state, To baffle saintly abbots, who would count The fish across their breviary, nor 'bate The measure of their steps. O waterfalls And forests! sound and silence! mountains bare, That leap up peak by peak, and catch the palls Of purple and silver mist, to rend and share With one another, at electric calls Of life in the sunbeams,-till we cannot dare Fix your shapes, learn your number! we must think Your beauty and your glory helped to fill The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink, That he no more was thirsty when God's will Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link