Thro' worlds where Life, and Voice, and Motion sleep;

Where silent Hours their death-like sway

extend,

Save when the avalanche breaks loose, to rend
Its way with uproar, till the ruin, drowned
In some dense wood or gulf of snow profound,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive
sound.

height,

To see a planet's pomp and steady light
In the least star of scarce-appearing night;
While the pale moon moves near him, on the
bound

Of ether, shining with diminished round,
And far and wide the icy summits blaze,
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays:
To him the day-star glitters small and bright,
Shorn of its beams, insufferably white,
And he can look beyond the sun, and view
Those fast-receding depths of sable blue
Flying till vision can no more pursue!
-At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes;
The Demon of the snow, with angry roar
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.
Soon with despair's whole weight his spirits sink;
Bread has he none, the snow must be his drink;
And, ere his eyes can close upon the day,
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades her prey.

Now couch thyself where, heard with fear afar,

Thunders through echoing pines the headlong Aar;

Or rather stay to taste the mild delights

Of pensive Underwalden's pastoral heights.
-Is there who 'mid these awful wilds has seen
The native Genii walk the mountain green?
Or heard, while other worlds their charms
reveal,

Soft music o'er the aerial summit steal?
While o'er the desert, answering every close,
Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and

goes.

-And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes,
Nought but the chalets, flat and bare, on high
Suspended 'mid the quiet of the sky;

Or distant herds that pasturing upward creep,
And, not untended, climb the dangerous steep.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouses the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
And with that voice accords the soothing sound
Of drowsy bells, for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-wood's steady
sugh;*

The solitary heifer's deepened low;

Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow. All motions, sounds, and voices, far and nigh, Blend in a music of tranquillity;

Save when, a stranger seen below, the boy Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.

And like the Patriarchs in their simple age
Move, as the verdure leads, from stage to stage;
High and more high in summer's heat they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
Or steal beneath the mountains, half-deterred,
Where huge rocks tremble to the bellowing
herd.

One I behold who, 'cross the foaming flood, Leaps with a bound of graceful hardihood; Another high on that green ledge; he gained The tempting spot with every sinew strained; And downward thence a knot of grass he throws,

Food for his beasts in time of winter snows.
-Far different life from what Tradition hoar
Transmits of happier lot in times of yore!
From out the rocks, the wild bees' safe abode:
Then Summer lingered long; and honey flowed
Continual waters welling cheered the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly

taste:

Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled, Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled: Nor Hunger driven the herds from pastures bare,

To climb the treacherous cliffs for scanty fare. Then the milk-thistle flourished through the land,

And forced the full-swoln udder to demand,
Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand.
Thus does the father to his children tell
Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well.
Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.

'Tis morn with gold the verdant mountain glows;

More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
A solemn sea! whose billows wide around
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound:
Pines, on the coast, through mist their tops
uprear,

That like to leaning masts of stranded ships appear.

A single chasm, a gulf of gloomy blue,
Gapes in the centre of the sea-and through
That dark mysterious gulf ascending, sound
Innumerable streams with roar profound.
Mount through the nearer vapours notes of
birds,

And merry flageolet; the low of herds,
The bark of dogs, the heifer's tinkling bell,
Talk, laughter, and perchance a church-tower

knell:

sound of the wind through the trees.

unraised:

1

Within a temple stands an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls.
Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain
That views, undimmed, Einsiedlen's* wretched
fane.

While ghastly faces through the gloom appear,
Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear;
While prayer contends with silenced agony,
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die.
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope-oh, pass and leave it there!

The tall sun, pausing on an Alpine spire,
Flings o'er the wilderness a stream of fire:
Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day
Close on the remnant of their weary way;
While they are drawing toward the sacred floor
Where, so they fondly think, the worm shall

gnaw no more.

How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste
The fountains reared for them amid the waste!
Their thirst they slake:--they wash their toil-
worn feet,

And some with tears of joy each other greet.
Yes, I must see you when ye first behold
Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,
In that glad moment will for you a sigh
Be heaved, of charitable sympathy;

In that glad moment when your hands are prest
In mute devotion on the thankful breast!

Last, let us turn to Chamouny that shields With rocks and gloomy woods her fertile fields: Five streams of ice amid her cots descend, And with wild flowers and blooming orchards

blend :

A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns
Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains;
Here all the seasons revel hand in hand:

'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets
fanned,

They sport beneath that mountain's matchless heignt

That holds no commerce with the summer
night.

From age to age, throughout his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds;
Appalling havoc! but serene his brow,
Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.
What marvel then if many a Wanderer sigh,
While roars the sullen Arve in anger by,
That not for thy reward, unrivalled Vale!
Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale;
That thou, the slave of slaves, art doomed to
pine

I And droop, while no Italian arts are thine,
To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine.

Hail Freedom! whether it was mine to stray,

With shrill winds whistling round my lonely

To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing

rose,

And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
Still have I found, where Tyranny prevails,
That virtue languishes and pleasure fails,
While the remotest hamlets blessings share
In thy loved presence known, and only there;
Heart-blessings-outward treasures too which
the eye

Of the sun peeping through the clouds can spy,
And every passing breeze will testify.
There, to the porch, belike with jasmine bound
Or woodbine wreaths, a smoother path is wound;
The housewife there a brighter garden sees,
Where hum on busier wing her happy bees;
On infant cheeks there fresher roses blow;
And grey-haired men look up with livelier
brow,--

To greet the traveller needing food and rest;
Housed for the night, or but a half-hour's guest.

And oh, fair France! though now the traveller sees

Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;

Though martial songs have banished songs of love,

And nightingales desert the village grove, Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms, And the short thunder, and the flash of arms; That cease not till night falls, when far and

nigh

Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams,

Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;

Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter sense of moral grief;
The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the
vale;

With more majestic course the water rolled,
And ripening foliage shone with richer gold.
--But foes are gathering Liberty must raise
Red on the hills her beacon's far-seen blaze;

Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower! Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour! Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted

ire

Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire:

Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth;

An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the close of the suminer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.

As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth!

-All cannot be: the promise is too fair
For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air:
Yet not for this will sober reason frown
Upon that promise, nor the hope disown;
She knows that only from high aims ensue
Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due.
Great God! by whom the strifes of men are
weighed

In an impartial balance, give thine aid

To the just cause; and, oh! do thou preside Over the mighty stream now spreading wide: So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied In copious showers, from earth by wholesome springs,

Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nilelike wings!

And grant that every sceptred child of clay Who cries presumptuous, "Here the flood shall

NAY, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands

Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if the bee love not these barren boughs?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy
mind

By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
-Who he was

That piled these stones and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember.-He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,
And scorn, against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service; wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude. -Stranger! these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,

His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper:
And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath,
And juniper and thistle, sprinkled o'er,
Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:
And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze
On the more distant scene,-how lovely 'tis
Thou seest,-and he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty, still more beauteous! Nor, that
time,

When nature had subdued him to herself,
Would he forget those Beings to whose minds

Warm from the labours of benevolence

The world, and human life, appeared a scene
Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh,
Inly disturbed, to think that others felt
What he must never feel: and so, lost Man!
On visionary views would fancy feed,
Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep