And of
these great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements
of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple
traversed by the continual stars." [9]
All these beauties are comprised in Tennyson's exquisite description of
Oenone's vale--the city, flowers, trees, river, and mountains.
"There is a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning; but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,
The crown of Troas."
And when we raise our eyes from earth, who has not sometimes felt "the
witchery of the soft blue sky;" who has not watched a cloud floating
upward as if on its way to heaven, or when
"Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof
The mountain its columns be.
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