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-water'd dells On Etna; and the beam Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs Down its steep verdant sides; the air Is freshen'd by the leaping stream, which throws Eternal showers of spray on the moss'd 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 show'd 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.