I see before me now a traveling army halting,


Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,


Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,


Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,


The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the mountain,


The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering,


And over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.