Chapter XIV: Canto XII

How they rave, the blessèd bards--
Even the tamest! how they sing,--
How they do protest that Nature
Is a mighty fane of God!

One great fane whose splendours all
Of the Maker's glory tell;
Sun and moon and stars they vow
Hang as lamps within the dome.

Yet concede, most worthy folk,
That this mighty temple hath
Most uncomfortable stairs,
Stairs most villainously bad!

All this climbing up and down,
Escalading, jumping o'er
Boulders--how it tires me
Both in spirit and in legs!

By my side Lascaro strode,
Like a taper long and pale--
Never speaks he, never laughs--
He the witch's lifeless son.

For they say Lascaro died
Many years ago--his mother's,--
Old Uraka's,--magic draughts
Gave to him a seeming life.

These confounded temple steps!
How it chanced that I escaped
With whole vertebræ will puzzle
Me until my dying day.

How the torrents foamed and roared!
Through the pines how lashed the wind
Till they groaned! Then suddenly
Burst the clouds! O weather vile!

In a fisherman's poor hut
Close by Lac de Gaube we gained
Shelter and a mess of trout--
Dish divine and glorious!

In his padded arm-chair there
Sat the ancient ferryman,
Ill and grey. His nieces sweet
Like two angels tended him.

Plumpest angels, Flemish quite,
As if out of Rubens' frame
They had leaped, with golden locks,
Sparkling eyes of limpid blue,

Dimples in each ruddy cheek
Where bright mischief peered and hid,
And with limbs robust and lithe,
Waking both desire and fear.

Sweet and bonny creatures they
Who disputed prettily
Which might prove the sweetest draught
To their ancient, ailing charge.

If one proffers him a brew
Made of linden-flower tea,
Then the other tempts him with
Possets made of elder-blooms.

"I will swallow none of this!"
Cried the greyhead, sorely tried,
"Bring me wine so that my guest
May have worthy drink with me!"

If this stuff was really wine
Which I drank at Lac de Gaube--
Who can tell? My countrymen
Would have dubbed it sweetish beer.

Vilely smelled the wine-skin too,
Fashioned from a black goat's hide.
But the old man drank and drank
And grew jubilant and gay.

Of banditti tales he told
And of smugglers, merry men
Who still ply their goodly trades
Freely in the Pyrenees.

Many ancient stories, too,
He recited, as of wars
'Twixt the giants and the bears
In the grey primeval days.

For it seems the bears and ogres
Waged a war for mastery
Of these ranges and these vales
Long ere man came wandering in.

Startled then at sight of men
All the giants fled the land;--
Only tiny brains were housed
In their huge, unwieldy heads!

It is also said these dolts,
When they reached the ocean-shore
Where the azure skies lay glassed
In the watery plains below,

Fondly fancied that the sea
Must be Heaven. In they plunged
All in reckless confidence,
And in watery graves were gulfed.

Now the bears are slain by man,
And each year their number grows
Smaller, smaller, till at last
None shall roam within the hills.

"And," the old man cackled, "thus
On this Earth must one yield room
To the other--after man
We shall have a reign of dwarfs.

"Tiny and most clever wights
Toiling in the bowels of Earth,
Busy little folk that gather
Riches from Earth's golden veins.

"I have seen their rounded heads
Peering out of rabbit-holes
In the moonlight--and I shook
As I thought of coming days.

"Yes, I dread the golden power
Of these mites. Our sons, I fear,
Will like stupid giants plunge
Straight into some watery heaven."