Unto the souls in hallowed musing wrapt,
Spirits in which creation's glorious forms
Do shadow forth and speak the Invisible,
The Ethereal, the Eternal, thou dost shine
With emblematic brightness. Those untrod
And matchless domes, though many a weary league
Beyond the gazer, when the misty veil
Dies round them, start upon his dazzled sight
In vastness almost tangible; thy smooth
And bold convexity of silent snows
Raised on the still and dark blue firmament !—
Mountain,-thou image of eternity!—
Oh, let not foreign feet inquisitive,
Swift in untrained aspirings, proudly tempt
Thy searchless waste!—what half-taught fortitude
Can balance unperturbed above the clefts
Of yawning and unfathomable ice
That moat thee round; or wind the giddy ledge
Of thy sheer granite! Hath he won his way,
That young investigator? Yes; but now,
Quick panting on superior snows, his frame
Trembles in dizziness; his wandering look
Drinks pale confusion; the wide scene is dim;
Its all of firm or fleeting, near or far,
Deep rolling clouds beneath, and wavering mists
That flit above him with their transient shades,
And storm-deriding rocks, and treacherous snows,
And blessed sunlight in his dying eye,
Float dubious; and 'tis midnight at his heart!—
Mountain, that firm and ardent Genevese,
The enthusiast child of science, whose bold foot
Bounded across thine ice-rents, who disdained
The frozen outworks of thy steep ravines,
And through a labyrinth of crystal rocks
Pressed his untired ascent, even he, and all
His iron-band of native mountaineers,
While scaling the aërial cupola
Of nature's temple, owned a breathless pang.
Thy most attenuate element is fit
For angel roamings. True, his zealous mind
Achieved its philosophic aim, and marked
And measured thee; but turned to earthly climes
Full soon, and bent in gladness toward the vale.—
Mountain, the sons of science or of taste,
Need not essay such triumph. 'Twas more wise
And happier-till a fiery chariot wait,
To scan from lesser heights thy glorious whole;
To climb above the deep though lofty plain
That wrongs thee; pass its line of envious peaks,
And, stationed at thy cross, sublime Flegere!
Thence meditate the monarch's grandeur, while
His host of subject hills are spread beneath;
For scarce, till then, his own colossal might
Seems disenthralled; and mute astonishment,
Unquenched by doubt or dread, at each new step,
Shall own his aspect more celestial still.
There in some hollow rock reclining, whence
The bright-eyed chamois sprang; with tufted bells
Of rhododendron blushing at my feet;
The unprofaned recess of Alpine life
Were all my world that hour; and the vast mount
In his lone majesty would picture heaven.-
Bright mountain,-ah! but volumed clouds enwarp
Thy broad foundations, curtain all thy steeps,
And, rising as the orb of day declines,
Brood on the vassal chain that flank thee round,
Then thy whole self involve-save, haply, when
A quick and changing vista may reveal
Some spotless portion of thy front, and show
Thee not unstable, like the earth-born cloud,
Brilliant, though hid, abiding if unseen.
Then as the vale grows darker, and the sun
Deserts unnumbered hills, o'er that high zone
Of gathered vapours thou dost sudden lift
Thy silver brow, calm as the hour of eve,
Clear as the morning, still as the midnight,
More beautiful than noon! for lo! the sun
Lingers to greet thee with a roseate ray,
And on thy silver brow his bright farewell
Is gleaming:-Mountain,-thou art half divine!
Severed from earth! Irradiate from heaven :-
Thus even the taught of heaven, with joyless eye
Fixed on the sable clouds which fear hath cast
O'er all the landscape of his destiny,
May fail to pierce them; but, though legioned shapes
Of nether evil, though the deep array
Of stern adversities, and murky hosts
Of dark illusions blot his upper skies,
Yet, as they change, through that incumbent gloom
Shall he catch glimpses of the hallowed Mount,
And weep that heaven is bright.—And at the hour
Of stillness, when even frightful shadows fade,
When night seems closing o'er his latest hopes,
And his sun set for ever,-then, behold,
Emerging, in mid heaven, thy glistening top.
O Zion! and the God that ruled his day
Hath not departed; for he poureth now
His radiance on thy summits, glancing back
A thrilling flood into his servant's soul!
"Joy full of glory!"-Was noon-day dark?
It was; but eve is cloudless; night is peace;
Rapture shall gild the never-ending morn!
HOU mightiest work of Him
That launched thee forth, a golden-crowned bride
To hang thy everlasting nuptial lamp
In the exulting heavens. In thee the light,
Creation's eldest born, was tabernacled.
To thee was given to quicken slumbering nature,
And lead the seasons' slow vicissitude
Over the fertile breast of mother earth;
Till men began to stoop their grovelling prayers
From the Almighty Sire of all to thee.
And I will add, Thou universal emblem
Hung in the forehead of the all-seen heavens,
Of Him, that with the light of righteousness
Dawned on our latter days; the visitant dayspring
Of the benighted world. Enduring splendour!
Giant refreshed; that evermore renewest
Thy flaming strength; nor ever shalt thou cease,
With time coeval, even till time itself
Hath perished in eternity. Then thou
Shalt own, from thy apparent deity
Debased, thy mortal nature, from the sky
Withering before the all-enlightening Lamb,
Whose radiant throne shall quench all other fires.
Mark how the purple clouds
Throng to pavilion him; the officious winds
Pant forth to purify his azure path
From Night's dun vapours and fast-scattering mists.
The glad earth wakes in adoration! all
The voices of all animated things lift up
Tumultuous orisons; the spacious world
Lives but in him, that is its life. But he,
Disdainful of the universal homage,
Holds his proud way, and vindicates for his own
The illimitable heavens, in solitude,
Of peerless glory unapproachable.
LORIOUS Orb! the idol
Of early nature, and the vigorous race
Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons
Of the embrace of angels, with a sex
More beautiful than they, which did draw down
The erring spirits who can ne'er return.
Most glorious Orb! that wert a worship, ere
The mystery of thy making was revealed!
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty,
Which gladdened, on their mountain tops, the hearts
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they poured
Themselves in orisons! thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown-
Who chose thee for his shadow! Thou chief star!
Centre of many stars! which mak'st our earth
Endurable, and temperest the hues
And hearts of all who walk within thy rays!
Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the climes,
And those who dwell in them! for near or far,
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,
Even as our outward aspects,—thou dost rise,
And shine and set in glory!
N wonder risest thou, material Orb!
And youthfulness—a symbol and a sign:
Change, revolution, age, decay, absorb
All other essences, but harm not thine :
In thy most awful face reflected shine
Thy Maker's attributes, celestial child!
When shapelessness rules chaos, the Divine
Looked on the void, tumultuous mass, and smiled— Then startedst thou to birth, and trod'st the pathless wild.
Girt like a giant for the speed, the flight,
The toil of unsummed ages; in thy zone,
Charmed into motion by thy sacred light,
The glad earth danced around thee with the tone
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