Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Etna (Ætna), the Mountain

Etna

By Virgil (70–19 B.C.)

NEAR Sicily and Æolian Lipari

An island rises steep, with smoking rocks.

Beneath, by huge Cyclopean forges scooped

And eaten out, the vast Ætnean caves

Thunder, and mighty anvil-strokes are heard;

And all the caverns roar and hiss, with blasts

Of fiery steel, from panting furnaces.

The abode of Vulcan this, lending its name

To the surrounding soil. Here from on high

The fire-god lights. Below, the Cyclops toil

Over their forges: Brontes, Steropes,

And naked-limbed Pyracmon.