Blue, purple, greened by moss and
water-weeds, silvered by snow-white pebbles, on its pure smooth bed
the river runs like elemental diamond, so clear and fresh. The rocks
on either side are grey or yellow, terraced into oliveyards, with here
and there a cypress, fig, or mulberry tree. Soon the gardens cease,
and lentisk, rosemary, box, and ilex--shrubs of Provence--with here
and there a sumach out of reach, cling to the hard stone. And so at
last we are brought face to face with the sheer impassable precipice.
At its basement sleeps a pool, perfectly untroubled; a lakelet in
which the sheltering rocks and nestling wild figs are glassed as in a
mirror--a mirror of blue-black water, like amethyst or fluor-spar--so
pure, so still, that where it laps the pebbles you can scarcely say
where air begins and water ends. This, then, is Petrarch's 'grotto;'
this is the fountain of Vaucluse. Up from its deep reservoirs, from
the mysterious basements of the mountain, wells the silent stream;
pauseless and motionless it fills its urn, rises unruffled, glides
until the brink is reached, then overflows, and foams, and dashes
noisily, a cataract, among the boulders of the hills. Nothing at
Vaucluse is more impressive than the contrast between the tranquil
silence of the fountain and the roar of the released impetuous river.
Here we can realise the calm clear eyes of sculptured water-gods,
their brimming urns, their gushing streams, the magic of the
mountain-born and darkness-cradled flood.
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