Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79. | | | | Switzerland: Alps, The | | The Alps | | Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774) |
| | (From The Traveller)
E’EN now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, | |
| I sit me down a pensive hour to spend; | |
| And placed on high above the storm’s career, | |
| Look downward where an hundred realms appear; | |
| Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide, | 5 |
| The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride. | |
| When thus Creation’s charms around combine, | |
| Amidst the store should thankless pride repine? | |
| Say, should the philosophic mind disdain | |
| That good which makes each humbler bosom vain? | 10 |
| Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, | |
| These little things are great to little man; | |
| And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind | |
| Exults in all the good of all mankind. | |
| Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor crowned; | 15 |
| Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round; | |
| Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale; | |
| Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale; | |
| For me your tributary stores combine: | |
| Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine! | 20 | | | |
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