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(From Night, Book III)
AND here, my soul, pursue the midnight sun, | |
| And fly to watch him from the Romsdal Horn, | |
| Unclimbed by man; but Fancy, by one bound | |
| Gaining the unfooted summit, steps secure | |
| Upon the toppling crag, the slippery verge, | 5 |
| Whence snow in terror falls; which eagles touch | |
| Half trembling, half in triumph; where the light | |
| Seems flurried in its passage, and the mist | |
| Creeps shuddering, with cold and cautious foot, | |
| Upon the highest, sharpest pinnacle. | 10 |
| Stand there, my soul, and mark the scene beneath: | |
| The half of Norway round this peak expands, | |
| Eastward a mountain, with a thousand eyes | |
| Of crags like needles, piercing spots of snow, | |
| Looks, leaning over at that mighty Horn, | 15 |
| In unapproachable and powerless hate, | |
| So deep the yawning gulf that sunders them, | |
| A gulf through which no stream dares murmur peace; | |
| Beyond, a thousand torn and dreary hills | |
| Carry the eye across the Dovre Fjeld, | 20 |
| Like stepping-stones o’er some dull stream of death; | |
| A glacier here and there, its frozen shield | |
| Lifting up blue against the shafts of day, | |
| While in the utmost east Snïehätten stands, | |
| Soaring nine thousand feet in spotless snow, | 25 |
| Of Norway’s Alps the solitary king. | |
| Southward a valley, like one waterfall, | |
| Comes leaping, tumbling, tossing into sight; | |
| A hundred woods are there, a hundred streams, | |
| Some lifting up their spray-sheets from afar, | 30 |
| Like banners of the Naiads in their wrath; | |
| Some breaking into view like prisoners | |
| Escaped from bondage in the hollow glens, | |
| Loud laughing in their joy, while others growl, | |
| Far down, in obscure contest with the rocks. | 35 |
| And, lo! two cataracts, from rival cliffs, | |
| Springing to meet and marry in mid air: | |
| Marry! it is the meeting of two wolves; | |
| They foam, they tear, they wrestle in their ire, | |
| Till spent they sink, and, cowering, roll in one | 40 |
| Their green and glimmering waters down the vale | |
| Beyond. And westward the Witch Peaks are seen, | |
| The torn and ragged children of the mist, | |
| Which playeth there with magic lights and shades, | |
| Heaving up hills far higher than the clouds, | 45 |
| And making clouds seem solid mountain-tops. | |
| Here crags are touched with finger-tips of gold, | |
| And there a sudden glory downward pours | |
| On darksome depths, where dragons of the pit | |
| Might hide forever their unearthly forms: | 50 |
| Enchanted, solemn, Sinaïtic scene, | |
| Which dwells upon my mind like a wild dream! | |
| Upon the North, see the green Romsdal stream | |
| Has found its fiord, while the mountains near | |
| Stand up in fixed and monumental gaze, | 55 |
| As pyramids precipitous and bold; | |
| And, far beyond old Moldé, billows vast | |
| Of alpine summits roll against the sky, | |
| As if disordered in a mighty march; | |
| Here some as blue as the blue skies themselves, | 60 |
| There others scarred by time or stained with snow; | |
| Some sharp as sabres, others blunt as roofs, | |
| Some laboring in mist, while others stand, | |
| Gigantic flames, conversing with the sun. | |
| And ere the mist has wrapped them all in gloom, | 65 |
| Behold yon mountain in the far northeast; | |
| He is alone, as some old prophet who | |
| Survives his kindred and out-towers his age: | |
| The sun smiles on his brow, and none besides. | |
| How beautiful his lonely lustre seems, | 70 |
| Like eye of happy spirit lingering, | |
| Ere leaving for a better, unknown land; | |
| And when it vanishes he too has fled, | |
| His glory and himself at once are gone, | |
| Dying as the last saint on earth might die! | 75 |
| So is it for an hour; but, lo! the mist | |
| Again disperses, and a silence strange | |
| Comes on my spirit, and proclaims that now | |
| Midnight has fallen upon the northern hills. | |
| Soundless the landscape, cloudless is the sun, | 80 |
| The mists are fled, the fiords sleep in light, | |
| And yet it seems as if an agony | |
| Were sweltering somewhere in the utmost north, | |
| An “agony of glory,” crisis fierce | |
| Of burning fever, transit terrible, | 85 |
| Over some point of torture to the sun! | |
| See how he droops, and with a strange vague eye | |
| Beholds the midnight world, while toward him | |
| All Nature looks with interest intense; | |
| Each mountain is a face, gleaming on him; | 90 |
| The great Snïehätten glares, a thousand hills | |
| Lift eyes of earnest question to the north; | |
| The very torrents in that sleepless sun | |
| Seem in their silence gazing eagerly: | |
| It is as though a god were dying there, | 95 |
| Or maddening in some nameless, hopeless woe, | |
| With the unrest of all his universe, | |
| Awake around in silent sympathy; | |
| Till, lo! the limit ’s past, and the broad ray | |
| Springs fresh and lively up the morning sky, | 100 |
| And all the birds their matins loud begin, | |
| And all the mountains quit their stony stare, | |
| And dew and beauty sparkle out again. | |
| And see yon eagle, who with awestruck eye | |
| Had the whole glaring night watched his great sire | 105 |
| From eastern eyry, starts in joy, and wheels | |
| Around the Romsdal Horn his airy flight, | |
| And calls on Norway to rejoice with him, | |
| Because that hideous midnight ’s fled, that noon | |
| Unnatural, more dread than darkness, gone, | 110 |
| And morn is sweetly shining on the world. | |
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