The Alps, Switzerland and the North of Italy: With Numerous Engravings

Portada
Alexander Montgomery, 1854 - 633 páginas
 

Contenido

Otras ediciones - Ver todas

Términos y frases comunes

Pasajes populares

Página 15 - Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
Página 49 - Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Página 210 - Father, thy hand Hath reared these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow, Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark, Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold Communion with...
Página 277 - Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those ills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.
Página 48 - Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form ! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently ! Around thee and above, Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge ! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity ! 0 dread and silent mount ! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in...
Página 28 - Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake," With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction ; once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.
Página 29 - And this is in the night. — Most glorious night ! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight — A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! And now again 'tis black — and now the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.
Página 29 - Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand : For here, not one, but many, make their play, And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around : of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked His lightnings, — as if he did understand, That in such gaps as desolation worked, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.
Página 210 - That, from the inmost darkness of the place, Comes, scarcely felt; — the barky trunks, the ground, The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Página 48 - Thy habitation from eternity! 0 dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy: Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing — there As in her natural form, swelled...

Información bibliográfica