CANTO IV.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
383
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
With many windings, through the vale:—Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an Eternity,
As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread,—a matchless cataract,[1]
LXXII.
Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris[2] sits, amidst the infernal surge,
- ↑ I saw the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice, at different periods—once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together: the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, etc., are rills in comparative appearance. Of the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet having seen it.
[The Falls of Reichenbach are at Rosenlaui, between Grindelwald and Meiringen; the Salanfe or Pisse-Vache descends into the valley of the Rhone near Martigny; the Nant d'Arpenaz falls into the Arve near Magland, on the road between Cluses and Sallanches.]
- ↑ Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris, the reader will see a short account, in a note to Manfred,[a] The fall looks so much like "the Hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto[b]
