Back again to my side and my shoulder,
And listen or sleep.
O how will your country show next week,
When all the vine-boughs 130
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture
The mules and the cows?
Last eve, I rode over the mountains,
Your brother, my guide,
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles
That offered, each side,
Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious,--
Or strip from the sorbs
A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous,
Those hairy gold orbs! 140
But my mule picked his sure sober path out,
Just stopping to neigh
When he recognized down in the valley
His mates on their way
With the faggots and barrels of water;
And soon we emerged
>From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow;
And still as we urged
Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,
As up still we trudged 150
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,
And place was e'en grudged
'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones
Like the loose broken teeth
Of some monster which climbed there to die
From the ocean beneath--