Poems (Proctor)/The Carpathians
THE CARPATHIANS.(Seen from the Bukovina.)
O the glorious purple line Of the mountains lifted along the west!Bright, in the sun, their summits shine; Dark, in the shade, their valleys rest.Cossack and Tartar may hold the plains, And the rivers that creep to a tideless sea;—Mine be the heights where the eagle reigns, And cataracts thunder, and winds blow free!
Not for the steppe, with its desert sheen, From Austria's border to China's wall,Would I give the upland pasture's green, The beech-tree's shadow, the brooklet's fall.Vanish, O weary, mournful Level! Welcome, O Wind my brow that fans!In the splendor of earth again I revel, Greeting the purple Carpathians!