Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold and
changeless beneath their snows. At my feet a great river flowed,
broken here and there with isles in the bright flood. The dark
champaign that flanked its shores was of an unusual verdure. Mystery
and peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of their
far-descending cataracts. In such abysmal fastnesses as these the
Hyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations. This was an air for the
sun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, its
flowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, its
grazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind.
Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest. But, with a kind
of heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distant
waters of the sea. Here, on the crest of this green hill, was silence.
There, too, was profounder silence on the sea's untrampled floor.
Whence comes that angel out of nought whispering into the ear strange
syllables? I know not; but so seemed I to stand--a shattered
instrument in the world, past all true music, o'er which none the less
the invisible lute-master stooped.
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