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Title: Ode To A Mountain Torrent
Author: George Borrow [
More Titles by Borrow]
From the German of Stolberg.
O stripling immortal thou forth dost career
From thy deep rocky chasm; beheld has no eye
The mighty one's cradle, and heard has no ear
At his under-ground spring-head his infant-like cry.
How lovely art thou in the foam of thy brow,
And yet the warm blood in my bosom grows chill;
For awful art thou and terrific, I vow,
In the roar of the echoing forest and hill.
The pine-trees are shaken--they yield to thy shocks,
And crashing they tumble in wild disarray;
The rocks fly before thee--thou seizest the rocks,
And contemptuously whirlst them like pebbles away.
But why dost thou haste to the ocean's dark flood?
Say, art thou not blest in thine own native ground,
When in the lone mountain and black shady wood
Thou dost bellow, and all gives response to thy sound?
Then haste not, I pray thee, to yonder blue sea,
For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny's rod,
Whilst here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free--
Free as a cloud-bird, and strong as a God.
Forsooth it is pleasant, at eve or at noon,
To gaze on the sea and its far-winding bays,
When ting'd by the light of the wandering moon,
Or when red with the gold of the midsummer rays.
What of that? what of that? thou shouldst ever behold
That lustre as nought but a bait and a snare:
Ah, what is the summer sun's purple and gold
Unto him, who can breathe not in freedom the air?
O pause for a while in thy downward career!
But still art thou streaming, my words are in vain:
Bethink thee that oft-changing winds domineer
On the billowy breast of the time-serving main.
Then haste not, I pray thee, to yonder blue sea,
For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny's rod,
Whilst here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free--
Free as a cloud-bird, and strong as a God.
[The end]
George Borrow's poem: Ode To A Mountain Torrent
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