Ex. 161.

Address to Mont Blanc.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arvé 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!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I 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 thoughts;
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 vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! awake,
Voice of sweet song! awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night!
And visited all night by troops of stars;
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald wake, O wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered, and the same for ever?
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?'

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers,
Of loveliest hue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds;
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And, in their perilous fall, shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest !
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element !

Utter forth, God! and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depths of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base,

Slow travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-rise, O ever rise!

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God!

Coleridge.

Ex. 162.

Tell's Address to the Alps.

Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first beheld,
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home
Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!

How huge you are! how mighty, and how free!
Ye are the things that tower, that shine-whose smile
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
Robed, or unrobed, do all the impress wear
Of awe divine! Ye guards of liberty,
I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they still are free. I rush to you
As though I could embrace you.

Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow,
O'er the abyss. His broad expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up! Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath,

And round about; absorbed, he heeded not

The death that threatened him! I could not shoot! 'Twas liberty! I turned my bow aside

And let him soar away.

Oh!

The land was free!

Emma! when I wedded thee, Oh! with what pride I used To walk these hills, and look up to my God, And bless him that it was so ! It was free! From end to end, from cliff to lake, 'twas free!Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks, And plough our valleys without asking leave; Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow In very presence of the regal sun!

How happy was I in it then! I loved

Its very storms! Yes, Emma, I have sat

In my boat, at night, when down the mountain gorge The wind came roaring-sat in it, and eyed

The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled

To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master, save his own!
You know the jutting cliff, round which a track
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow
To such another one? O'ertaken there
By the mountain-blast, I've laid me flat along ;
And while gust followed gust more furiously,
As if 'twould sweep me o'er the horrid brink,
And I have thought of other lands, whose storms
Are summer-flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there-the thought that mine was free
Has checked that wish; and I have raised my head,
And cried, in thraldom, to that furious wind-
'Blow on! This is the land of liberty!'

Sheridan Knowles.

Stay, gaoler, stay, and hear my woe!
She is not mad who kneels to thee

For what I was too well I know,

And what I am, and what should be.
I'll rave no more in proud despair;

My language shall be mild-though sad:
But yet I'll firmly, truly swear,

I am not mad! I am not mad!

My tyrant husband forged the tale
Which chains me in this dismal cell;
My fate unknown my friends bewail,
Oh! gaoler, haste that fate to tell!
Oh! haste, my father's heart to cheer;
His heart at once 'twill grieve and glad,
To know, though kept a captive here,
I am not mad! I am not mad!

He smiles in scorn, and turns the key!
He quits the grate; I knelt in vain!
His glimmering lamp, still, still I see!
'Tis gone, and all is gloom again!
Cold-bitter cold-no warmth, no light!
Life! all thy comforts once I had!
Yet, here I'm chained, this freezing night,
Although not mad! no, no, not mad?
"Tis sure some dream-some vision vain !
What! I, the child of rank and wealth;
Am I the wretch that clanks this chain,

Deprived of freedom, friends, and health?

Ah! while I dwell on blessings past,

Which never more my heart must glad,
How aches my heart! how burns my head!

But 'tis not mad! no, 'tis not mad!
Hast thou, my child, forgot, ere this,
A mother's face-a mother's tongue?
She'll ne'er forget your parting kiss,
Nor round her neck how fast you clung,
Nor how with me you sued to stay ;

Nor how that suit your sire denied ;
Nor how-I'll drive such thoughts away?
They'll make me mad! they'll make me mad!

His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled!

His mild blue eyes, how bright they shone !
None ever bore a lovelier child!

And art thou now for ever gone?
And shall I never see thee more,
My pretty, pretty, pretty lad?
I will be free! unbar the door!

I am not mad! I am not mad!

O hark! what mean those yells and cries?
His chain, some furious madman breaks?
He comes! I see his glaring eyes!

Now, now my dungeon-grate he shakes?
Help! help! He's gone! Oh! fearful woe,
Such screams to hear, such sights to see!
My brain! my brain !-I know, I know,
I am not mad, but soon shall be !
Yes, soon! for, lo, you! while I speak,
Mark how yon demon's eye-balls glare;
He sees me-now, with dreadful shriek
He whirls a serpent high in air.
Horror! the reptile strikes his tooth
Deep in my heart, so crushed and sad!
Ay, laugh, ye fiends? I feel the truth;
Your task is done: I'm mad! I'm mad!

Lewis.

'Room for the leper! room!'-And as he came,
The cry passed on- -'Room for the leper! room!'
Sunrise was slanting on the city gates
Rosy and beautiful; and from the hills
The early-risen poor were coming in,