Bivouac on a Mountain Side

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.