Völker verrauschen,

Namen verklingen,

Finstre Vergessenheit

Breitet die dunkelnachtenden Schwingen

Über ganzen Geschlechtern aus

Schiller

from Die Braut von Messina

Ours is a great wild country:

If you climb to our castle’s top,

I don’t see where your eye can stop;

For when you’ve passed the corn-field country,

Where vine-yards leave off, flocks are packed,

And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,

And cattle-tract to open-chase,

And open-chase to the very base

Of the mountain, where, at a funeral pace,

Round about, solemn and slow,

One by one, row after row,

Up and up the pine-trees go,

So, like black priests up, and so

Down the other side again

To another greater, wilder country.

Robert Browning

from The Flight of the Duchess