“The foam globes round come riding fast” [“The Source of the Arveron”] [poem]
The foam‐globes round come riding fast,
1
Like snow upon the eddies cast.
Forth from his cold and silent tomb,
Forth flies the river from the gloom. 2
The bars that echoed to his roaring—
Those icy bars have burst before him.
And now his chafèd surges see
Bound high in laughing liberty!
Oh, frigidly the glacier pale
Bears broadly to the nether vale!
Right in his cliffy, shivered side
Yawneth a chasm high and wide,
And from the portal arched and strong
Springs gladsome forth the Arveron.
Seems it an ancient forteresse, a
All shattered in its mightiness;
The higher towers all rent and riven—
The battlements all downward driven— b
And, that its form thou now couldst trace,
Froze to an icy wilderness: c
And that, its portal vast and old,
All archèd by the crisp ice cold,
And through whose chasms of paly green
The shivery sunshine shot between,
Or trembling with a meteor light,
Or dancing in the billows bright,
Smiling aetherially through
The ghost lights of the crystal blue.
Like snow upon the eddies cast.
Forth from his cold and silent tomb,
Forth flies the river from the gloom. 2
The bars that echoed to his roaring—
System generated line number
5Those icy bars have burst before him.
And now his chafèd surges see
Bound high in laughing liberty!
Oh, frigidly the glacier pale
Bears broadly to the nether vale!
System generated line number
10Right in his cliffy, shivered side
Yawneth a chasm high and wide,
And from the portal arched and strong
Springs gladsome forth the Arveron.
Seems it an ancient forteresse, a
System generated line number
15All shattered in its mightiness;
The higher towers all rent and riven—
The battlements all downward driven— b
And, that its form thou now couldst trace,
Froze to an icy wilderness: c
System generated line number
20And that, its portal vast and old,
All archèd by the crisp ice cold,
And through whose chasms of paly green
The shivery sunshine shot between,
Or trembling with a meteor light,
System generated line number
25Or dancing in the billows bright,
Smiling aetherially through
The ghost lights of the crystal blue.