on fading eye, "silent" from her upward Tower like a wall the naked rocks, or amov'd with each rude form of Danger nigh, 260 'd on the anchor left by him who saves ike in whelming snows and roaring waves. On as we move, a softer prospect opes, Im huts, and lawns between, and sylvan slopes. hile mists, suspended on th' expiring gale, 265 oveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale, e beams of evening, slipping soft between, ght up of tranquil joy a sober scene; inding it's dark-green wood and emerald glade, Peeps out a little speck of smiling green, There with his infants man undaunted creeps And hangs his small wood-hut upon the A garden-plot the desert air perfumes, 296 A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff e still vale lengthens underneath the Threading the painful cragg surmounts shade; ile in soft gloom the scattering bowers Before those hermit doors, that never recede, 270 the cliff. know 299 en dewy lights adorn the freshen'd The face of traveller passing to and fro, mead, ere solitary forms illumin'd stray ming with quiet touch the valley's hay, the low brown wood-huts delighted sleep No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell bell, Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark forgoes, 275 Touch'd by the beggar's moan of human ng the brighten'd gloom reposing deep. ile pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull, i bells of passing mules that tinkle olemn shapes before th' admiring eye 281 I antique castles seen thro' drizzling show'rs. There might the love-sick maiden sit, and chide Th' insuperable rocks and severing tide, om such romantic dreams my soul There watch at eve her lover's sun-gilt awake, Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake, vhose unpathway'd margin still and dread 285 never heard the plodding peasant's tread. sail 311 Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale, There list at midnight till is heard no houses in the more retired Swiss valleys To guide his dangerous tread the taper's I built of wood. gleam. 'Mid stormy vapours ever driving by, Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry, Where in a mighty crucible expire 3 The mountains, glowing hot, like coals & fire1. Where hardly giv'n the hopeless waste to But lo! the boatman, over-aw'd, before Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest On Zutphen's plain; or where w 1 I had once given to these sketches the of Picturesque; but the Alps are insulted Shakes from behind the clouds his flash- plying to them that term. Whoever, in atten ing shield. Triumphant on the bosom of the storm, form; ing to describe their sublime features, sh confiné himself to the cold rules of pse would give his reader but a very imperfet of those emotions which they have the re ble power of communicating to the most sive imaginations. The fact is, that contra influence, which distinguishes the Alps fr The wood-crown'd cliffs that o'er the lake dain the pencil. Had I wished to make s other scenery, is derived from images whi Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine recline; 340 Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold, of this scene I had thrown much less light it. But I consulted nature and my feelings ideas excited by the stormy sunset 1 an At once to pillars turn'd that flame with describing owed their sublimity to that defer gold; Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun The west that burns like one dilated sun, light, or rather of fire, in which nature had ped the immense forms around me; any sion of shade, by destroying the unity impression, had necessarily diminished it deur. But now with other soul I stand alone mall as a bird the chamois-chaser fly. 371 hro' vacant worlds where Nature never gave brook to murmur or a bough to wave, Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep; hro' worlds where Life and Sound, and Motion sleep, 375 Weak and more weak the issuing current eyes 396 Lapp'd by the panting tongue of thirsty skies 3. -At once bewildering mists around him close, woes; And cold and hunger are his least of 399 The Demon of the snow with angry roar Descending, shuts for aye his prison door. Craz'd by the strength of hope at morn he eyes As sent from heav'n the raven of the skies, Then with despair's whole weight his spirits sink, There Silence still her death-like reign extends, 405 we when the startling cliff unfrequent While ere his eyes can close upon the rends: No bread to feed him, and the snow his drink, day, the deep snow the mighty ruin drown'd, The eagle of the Alps o'ershades his prey. ocks the dull ear of Time with deaf-Meanwhile his wife and child with abortive sound; cruel hope While o'er the desert, answering every When fragrant scents beneath th enclose, chanted tread Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes Spring up, his little all around him spread, The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to and goes. -And sure there is a secret Power that reigns Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes, 425 scale, To silence leaving the deserted vale, Nought but the herds that pasturing up- Each twilight earlier call'd the Sun Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous With earlier smile the ray of morn to viet Fall on his shifting hut that gleams i smoking dew; steep, Or summer hamlet1, flat and bare, on high The solitary heifer's deepen'd low; Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow. Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy 440 Bless'd with his herds, as in the par arch's age, The summer long to feed from stage stage; O'er azure pikes serene and still, they a way; Hang from the rocks that tremble o the steep, And tempt the icy valley yawning dep O'er-walk the chasmy torrent's foam bed, Shouts from the echoing hills with savage Rock'd on the dizzy larch's narrow tread. Whence Danger leans, and pointing ghas joy. When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas, Comes on, to whisper hope, the vernal breeze3, When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear, ly, joys To mock the mind with "desperation Or steal beneath loose mountains, That sigh and shudder to the lowing he And emerald isles to spot the heights-I see him, up the midway cliff he c To where a scanty knot of verdure peep Thence down the steep a pile of gras throws appear, 445 When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill, And louder torrents stun the noon-tide The fodder of his herds in winter snow 1 These summer hamlets are most probably (as I have seen observed by a critic in the Gentleman's Magazine) what Virgil alludes to in the expression "Castella in tumulis." of yore1. 4 This tradition of the golden age of the as M. Raymond observes, is highly intere 2 Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound interesting not less to the philosopher tha of the wind through the trees. 3 This wind, which announces the spring to the Swiss, is called in their language FOEN; and is according to M. Raymond the Syroco of the Italians. the poet. Here I cannot help remarking. the superstitions of the Alps appear to b from possessing that poetical character which eminently distinguishes those of Scotland the other mountainous northern countries 26 Then Summer lengthen'd out his season bland, Loud thro' that midway gulf ascending, sound nd with rock-honey flow'd the happy Unnumber'd streams with hollow roar land. ontinual fountains welling chear'd the waste, nd plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste. or Winter yet his frozen stores had pil'd 480 surping where the fairest herbage smil'd; profound. 505 Mounts thro' the nearer mist the chaunt of birds, And talking voices, and the low of herds, The bark of dogs, the drowsy tinkling bell, And wild-wood mountain lutes of saddest swell. Think not, suspended from the cliff on high 510 He looks below with undelighted eye. * Hunger forc'd the herds from pastures bare scanty food the treacherous cliffs to Stretch'd on the scented mountain's purdare. ple side. en the milk-thistle bad those herds For as the pleasures of his simple day demand Beyond his native valley hardly stray, 515 Nought round it's darling precincts can ree times a day the pail and welcome hand. 485 rose. He, all superior but his God disdain'd, stretch'd beneath the many-tinted Walk'd none restraining, and by none hills, restrain❜d, Confess'd no law but what his reason taught, Did all he wish'd, and wish'd but what he ought. 525 As Man in his primæval dower array'd The image of his glorious sire display'd, Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepar'd With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard." 535 |