“Cologne” [poem]
The noon was past, the sun was low
Yet still we felt his arid glow
From the red sand reflected glare
Deadened the breeze, and fired the air
The open sky was misty grey,
The clouds in mighty masses lay
That heaped on the horizon high,
Marked Alpine outline on the sky
Long had we toiled to gain a brow, 1
On which we stood triumphant now a
Yet still we felt his arid glow
From the red sand reflected glare
Deadened the breeze, and fired the air
The open sky was misty grey,
System generated line number
5The clouds in mighty masses lay
That heaped on the horizon high,
Marked Alpine outline on the sky
Long had we toiled to gain a brow, 1
On which we stood triumphant now a
System generated line number
10
While the white mist was certain sign
Where took his course the mighty Rhine,
Hills in the distant haze were seen, 2
And wide expanse of plain between,
Whose desert length without a tree,
Was stretched in vast monotony.
We drove adown that hill amain
We past along the shadeless plain
Rested we now where uncontrolled
The Rhine his bursting billows rolled,
And ever, ever, fierce and free,
Bore broadly onward to the sea.
Where took his course the mighty Rhine,
Hills in the distant haze were seen, 2
And wide expanse of plain between,
Whose desert length without a tree,
System generated line number
15Was stretched in vast monotony.
We drove adown that hill amain
We past along the shadeless plain
Rested we now where uncontrolled
The Rhine his bursting billows rolled,
System generated line number
20And ever, ever, fierce and free,
Bore broadly onward to the sea.