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Was heard, Depart, depart![126] 370 The atmosphere, That with the ceaseless hurry of its clouds, Encircles the round globe, resembles oft The passing sunshine, or the glooms that stray O'er every human spirit. Thin light streaks Of thought pass vapoury o'er the vacant mind, And fade to nothing. Now fantastic gleams Play, flashing or expiring, of gay hope, Or deep despair; then clouds of sadness close 380 In one dark settled gloom, and all the man Droops, in despondence lost. Aerial tints Please most the pensive poet: and the views He forms, though evanescent, and as vain As the air's mockery, seem to his eye Ev'n as substantial images, and shapes, Till in a hurrying rack they all dissolve. So in the cloudless sky, amusive shines The soft and mimic scenery; distant hills 390 That, in refracted light, hang beautiful Beneath the golden car of eve, ere yet The daylight lingering fades. Hence, on the heights Of Apennine, far stretching to the south, The goat-herd, while the westering sun, far off, Hangs o'er the hazy ocean's brim, beholds In the horizon's faintly-glowing verge A landscape,[127] like the rainbow, rise, with rocks That softened shine, and shores that trend away, 400 Beneath the winding woods of Sicily, And Etna, smouldering in the still pale sky; And dim Messina, with her spires, and bays That wind among the mountains, and the tower Of Faro, gleaming on the tranquil straits; Unreal all, yet on the air impressed, From light's refracted ray,[128] the shadow seems The certain scene: the hind astonished views, Yet most delighted, till at once the light Changes, and all has vanished! 410 But to him, How different in still air the unreal view, Who wanders in Arabian solitudes, When, faint with thirst, he sees illusive streams[129] Shine in the arid desert! All around, A silent waste of dark gray sand is spread, Like ashes; not a speck in heaven appears, But the red sun, high in his burning noon, Shoots down intolerable f
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