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Part I. Day THE MOUNTAINS of this glorious land | |
| Are conscious beings to mine eye, | |
| When at the break of day they stand | |
| Like giants looking through the sky, | |
| To hail the sun’s unrisen car, | 5 |
| That gilds their diadems of snow; | |
| While one by one, as star by star, | |
| Their peaks in ether glow. | |
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| Their silent presence fills my soul, | |
| When to the horizontal ray, | 10 |
| The many-tinctured vapors roll | |
| In evanescent wreaths away, | |
| And leave them naked on the scene, | |
| The emblems of eternity, | |
| The same as they have ever been, | 15 |
| And shall forever be. | |
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| Yet, through the valley while I range, | |
| Their cliffs, like images in dreams, | |
| Color and shape and station change; | |
| Here crags and caverns, woods and streams | 20 |
| And seas of adamantine ice, | |
| With gardens, vineyards, fields embraced, | |
| Open a way to Paradise, | |
| Through all the splendid waste. | |
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| The goats are hanging on the rocks, | 25 |
| Wide through their pastures roam the herds; | |
| Peace on the uplands feeds her flocks, | |
| Till suddenly the king of birds | |
| Pouncing a lamb, they start for fear; | |
| He bears his bleating prize on high; | 30 |
| The well-known plaint his nestlings hear, | |
| And raise a ravening cry. | |
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| The sun in morning freshness shines; | |
| At noon behold his orb o’ercast; | |
| Hollow and dreary o’er the pines, | 35 |
| Like distant ocean, moans the blast; | |
| The mountains darken at the sound, | |
| Put on their armor, and anon, | |
| In panoply of clouds wrapt round, | |
| Their forms from sight are gone. | 40 |
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| Hark! war in heaven!—the battle-shout | |
| Of thunder rends the echoing air; | |
| Lo! war in heaven!—thick-flashing out | |
| Through torrent-rains red lightnings glare, | |
| As though the Alps, with mortal ire, | 45 |
| At once a thousand voices raised, | |
| And with a thousand swords of fire | |
| At once in conflict blazed. | |
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Part II. Night COME, golden Evening, in the west | |
| Enthrone the storm-dispelling sun, | 50 |
| And let the triple rainbow rest | |
| O’er all the mountain-tops:—’T is done; | |
| The deluge ceases; bold and bright | |
| The rainbow shoots from hill to hill; | |
| Down sinks the sun; on presses night; | 55 |
| —Mont Blanc is lovely still. | |
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| There take thy stand, my spirit;—spread | |
| The world of shadows at thy feet; | |
| And mark how calmly, overhead, | |
| The stars like saints in glory meet: | 60 |
| While hid in solitude sublime, | |
| Methinks I muse on Nature’s tomb, | |
| And hear the passing foot of Time | |
| Step through the gloom. | |
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| All in a moment, crash on crash, | 65 |
| From precipice to precipice, | |
| An avalanche’s ruins dash | |
| Down to the nethermost abyss; | |
| Invisible, the ear alone | |
| Follows the uproar till it dies; | 70 |
| Echo on echo, groan for groan, | |
| From deep to deep replies. | |
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| Silence again the darkness seals,— | |
| Darkness that may be felt;—but soon | |
| The silver-clouded east reveals | 75 |
| The midnight spectre of the moon; | |
| In half-eclipse she lifts her horn, | |
| Yet, o’er the host of heaven supreme, | |
| Brings the faint semblance of a morn | |
| With her awakening beam. | 80 |
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| Ha! at her touch these Alpine heights | |
| Unreal mockeries appear; | |
| With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights, | |
| Enlarging as she climbs the sphere; | |
| A crowd of apparitions pale! | 85 |
| I hold my breath in chill suspense,— | |
| They seem so exquisitely frail,— | |
| Lest they should vanish hence. | |
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| I breathe again, I freely breathe; | |
| Lake of Geneva! thee I trace, | 90 |
| Like Dian’s crescent far beneath, | |
| And beautiful as Dian’s face. | |
| Pride of this land of liberty! | |
| All that thy waves reflect I love; | |
| Where heaven itself, brought down to thee, | 95 |
| Looks fairer than above. | |
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| Safe on thy banks again I stray, | |
| The trance of poesy is o’er, | |
| And I am here at dawn of day, | |
| Gazing on mountains as before; | 100 |
| For all the strange mutations wrought | |
| Were magic feats of my own mind; | |
| Thus, in the fairy-land of thought, | |
| Whate’er I seek I find. | |
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| Yet, O ye everlasting hills! | 105 |
| Buildings of God not made with hands, | |
| Whose word performs whate’er he wills, | |
| Whose word, though ye shall perish, stands; | |
| Can there be eyes that look on you, | |
| Till tears of rapture make them dim, | 110 |
| Nor in his works the Maker view, | |
| Then lose his works in him? | |
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| By me, when I behold him not | |
| Or love him not when I behold, | |
| Be all I ever knew forgot; | 115 |
| My pulse stand still, my heart grow cold; | |
| Transformed to ice, ’twixt earth and sky, | |
| On yonder cliff my form be seen, | |
| That all may ask, but none reply, | |
| What my offence hath been. | 120 |
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