The sun 1-beams streak the azure skies, And line with light the mountain's brow: With hounds and horns the hunters rise, And chase the roebuck thro’ the snow. From rock to rock, with giant-bound, High on their iron poles they pass; Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound, Rend from above a frozen mass. a The goats wind slow their wonted way, Up craggy steeps and ridges rude ; Marked by the wild wolf for his prey, From desert cave or hanging wood. And while the torrent thunders loud, WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT. 1786. WHILE thro’ the broken pane the tempest sighs, TO .. Go-you may call it madness, folly; Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure TO THE FRAGMENT OF A STATUE OF HERCULES, COMMONLY CALLED THE TORSO. And dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone, * In the gardens of the Vatican, where it was placed by Julius II., it was long the favourite study of those great men to whom we owe the revival of the arts, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and the Caracci. + Once in the possession of Praxiteles, if we may believe an ancient epigram on the Gnidian Venus. Analecta Vet. Poetarum, III. 200. |