The Last Glen

Hist! once more!     Listen, Pausanias!Aye, tis Callicles!     I know those notes among a thousand.    Hark!          CALLICLES          (Sings unseen, from below.)          The track winds down to the clear stream,     To cross the sparkling shallows; there     The, cattle love to gather, on their way     To the high mountain pastures, and to stay,     Till the rough cow-herds drive them past,     Knee-deep in the cool ford; for tis the last     Of all the woody, high, well-waterd dells     On Etna; and the beam     Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs     Down its steep verdant sides; the air     Is freshend by the leaping stream, which throws     Eternal showers of spray on the mossd roots     Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots     Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells     Of hyacinths, and on late anemonies,     That muffle its wet banks; but glade,     And stream, and sward, and chestnut trees,     End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare     Of the hot noon, without a shade,     Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare;     The peak, round which the white clouds play.     In such a glen, on such a day,     On Pelion, on the grassy ground,     Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay,     The young Achilles standing by.     The Centaur taught him to explore     The mountains; where the glens are dry,     And the tired Centaurs come to rest,     And where the soaking springs abound,     And the straight ashes grow for spears,     And where the hill-goats come to feed,     And the sea-eagles build their nest.     He showd him Phthia far away,     And said: O boy, I taught this lore     To Peleus, in long distant years!     He told him of the Gods, the stars,     The tides;and then of mortal wars,     And of the life which heroes lead     Before they reach the Elysian place     And rest in the immortal mead;     And all the wisdom of his race.