Classic Poem

CAPUTXVI

When you see these mountain summits
From afar, they glance and sparkle
As if decked in gold and purple,
In the sunlight, proud and regal.

But the splendour fades when nearer,
For with this, as with so many
Of the glories of the world,
'Tis the play of light deludes you.

And what golden seemed and purple
In the distance, now is snow —
Merely snow, that, dull and fretful,
Finds the hours too long and lonely.

Where I walked I heard above me
How the crepitating snow,
To the callous wind and chilly,
Wailed and sighed its white despair.

" In this barren waste, " it murmured,
" Ah, how slow the hours in passing!
Frozen eternities the hours are,
So interminable, weary.

" Never snow was so unhappy!
If, instead of on these mountains,
I had only fallen yonder
In the vale, where flowers blossom!

" I had melted to a streamlet,
Where the fairest village maiden,
Leaning lovely o'er my water,
Might have washed her face with laughter.

" Yes, and haply flowing seaward,
To a pearl I might have changed me,
And effulgent shone for ever
On some golden, kingly crown. "

But I answered, having hearkened
To its plaining, " Dearest snow,
Much I doubt if such a future
Had been thine in yonder valley;

" Wherefore comfort thee. Not many
Are transmuted into pearls.
In some puddle, maybe falling,
Into slime thou hadst been trampled. "

While I held this conversation
With the snow, a shot resounded;
On a sudden from the heavens
Dropped a tawny vulture headlong.

'Twas a joke of friend Lascaro's:
Just a sportsman making merry.
Stern and fixed his face as ever,
But his gun was hot and smoking.

From the tail he tore a feather,
And without a word he stuck it
On his pointed cap of felt,
And again went striding forward.

Most uncanny was the picture,
As his shadow with the feather
Moved along against the whiteness
Of the gleaming snowy summits.