Chapter XVIII: Canto XVI

Shouldst thou see these mountain peaks
From the distance thou wouldst think
That with gold and purple they
Flamed in splendour to the sun.

But at closer hand their pomp
Vanishes. Earth's glories thus
With their myriad light-effects
Still beguile us artfully.

What to thee seemed blue and gold
Is, alas, but idle snow,
Idle snow which, lone and drear,
Bores itself in solitude.

There upon the heights I heard
How the hapless crackling snow
Cried aloud its pallid grief
To the cold and heartless wind:

"Ah," it sobbed, "how slow the hours
Crawl within this awful waste!
All these many endless hours,
Like eternities of ice!

"Woe is me, poor snow! I would
I had never seen these peaks--
Might I but in vales have fallen
Where a myriad flowers bloom!

"To some little brook would I
Then have melted, and some maid--
Fairest of the land! with smiles
Would in me have laved her face.

"Yea, perchance, I might have fared
To the sea and changed betimes
To a pearl and gleamed at last
In some royal coronet!"

When I heard this plaint, I spake:
"Dearest Snow, indeed I doubt
Whether such a brilliant fate
Had been thine within the world.

"Comfort take. Few, few, indeed,
Ever grow to pearls. No doubt
Thou hadst fallen in the mire
And become a clod of mud."

As in kindly wise I spoke
Thus unto the joyless snow,
Came a shot--and from the skies
Plunged a hawk of brownish wing.

It was just a hunter's joke
Of Lascaro's. But his face
Was as ever stark and grim,
And his rifle barrel smoked.

Silently he tore a plume
From the hawk's erected tail,
Stuck it in his pointed hat
And resumed his silent way.

'Twas an eerie sight to see
How his shadow black and thin
With the nodding feather moved
O'er the slopes of drifted snow.