POETRY. 617 
The mountaineers 
Before the castle, round their mouldering fires, 
Lie on the heath out-stretch’d. Pelayo’s hall 
Is full, and he upon his careful couch 
Hears all around the deep and long-drawn breath 
Of sleep ; for gentle night had brought to these 
Perfect and undisturbed repose, alike 
Of corporal powers and inward faculty. 
Wakeful the while he lay. 
A mountain rivulet, 
Now calm and lovely in its summer course, 
Held by those huts its everlasting way 
Towards Pionia. They whose flocks and herds 
Drink of its waters callit Deva. Here 
Pelayo southward up the ruder vale 
Traced it, his guide unerring. Amid heaps 
Of mountain wreck, on either side thrown high, 
The wide-spread traces of its wintry might, 
The tortuous channel wound ; o’er beds of sand 
Here silently it flows; here, from the rock 
Rebutted, curls and eddies ; plunges here 
Precipitate ; here, roaring among crags, 
It leaps and foams and whirls and hurries on, 
Grey alders here and bushy hazels hid 
The mossy side: their wreathed and knotted feet 
Bared by the current, now against its force 
Repaying the support they found, upheld 
The bank secure. Here, bending to the stream, 
The birch fantastic stretch’d its rugged trunk, 
Tall and erect, from whence as from their base 
Each like a tree its silver branches grew. 
The cherry here hung for the birds of heaven 
Its rosy fruit on high, The elder there 
Its purple berries o’er the water bent, 
Heavily hanging. Here amid the brook, 
Grey as the stone to which they clung, half root 
Half trunk, the young ash rises from the rock ; 
And there its parent lifts a lofty head, 
And spreads its graceful boughs ; the passing wind 
With twinkling motion lifts the silent leaves, 
And shakes its rattling tufts. 
Soon had the Prince 
Behind him left the farthest dwelling place 
Of man ; no fields of waving corn were here, 
Nor wicker storehouse for the autumnal grain, 
Vineyard, nor bowery fig, nor fruitful grove: 
Only the rocky vale, the mountain stream, 
