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And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain steeps appear.
-Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find

The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no! as fades the vale, they fade away:
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains;
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.

The bird, who ceased, with fading light, to thread
Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed,
From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to Ether's bound;
And pleased her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
In robes of azure, fleecy-white, and gold.

See, o'er the eastern hill, where darkness broods
O'er all its vanished dells, and lawns, and woods;
Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace,
She lifts in silence up her lovely face;
Above the gloomy valley flings her light,
Far to the western slopes with hamlets white;
And gives, where woods the chequered upland strew,
To the green corn of summer autumn's hue.

Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn
Her dawn, far lovelier than the Moon's own morn;
'Till higher mounted, strives in vain to cheer
The weary hills, impervious, blackening near;
-Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while
On darling spots remote her tempting smile.

-Ev'n now she decks for me a distant scene,
(For dark and broad the gulf of time between)
Gilding that cottage with her fondest ray,
(Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my way;
How fair its lawns and sheltering woods appear!
How sweet its streamlet murmurs in mine ear!)
Where we, my Friend, to happy days shall rise,
'Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs
(For sighs will ever trouble human breath)
Creep hush'd into the tranquil breast of Death.

But now the clear-bright Moon her zenith gains,
And rimy without speck extend the plains;
The deepest dell the mountain's front displays,
Scarce hides a shadow from her searching rays;
From the dark-blue « faint silvery threads» divide
The hills, while gleams below the azure tide;
The scene is waken'd, yet its peace unbroke,
By silver'd wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke,
That, o'er the ruins of the fallen wood,
Steal down the hills, and spread along the flood.
The song of mountain streams, unheard by day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way.
All air is, as the sleeping water, still,
List'ning the aëreal music of the hill,
Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep,

Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep,
Soon followed by his hollow-parting oar,
And echoed hoof approaching the far shore;
Sound of closed gate, across the water borne,
Hurrying the feeding hare through rustling corn;

The tremulous sob of the complaining owl;
And at long intervals the mill-dog's howl;
The distant forge's swinging thump profound;
Or yell, in the deep woods, of lonely hound.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES

TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALPS.

TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES,

FELLOW OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. DEAR SIR,

HOWEVER desirous I might have been of giving you proofs of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the circumstance of my having accompanied you amongst the Alps, seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.

In inscribing this little work to you, I consult my heart. You know well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post-chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side, each with his little knapsack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How much more of heart between the two latter!

I am happy in being conscious I shall have one reader who will approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we observed them together, consequently, whatever is feeble in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own memory.

With still greater propriety 1 might have inscribed to you a description of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the sea-sunsets which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethkelert, Menai and her Druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee, remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem I am, dear Sir,

London, 1793.

Most sincerely yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.

Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth amongst the Charms of Nature-Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller-Author crosses France to the Alps-Present State of the Grande Chartreuse-Lake of Como-Time, Sunset-Same Scene, TwilightSame Scene, Morning, its voluptuous Character; Old Man and Forest Cottage Music-River Tusa— Via Mala and Grison Gipsy. Sckellenen-thal— Lake of Uri. Stormy Sunset-Chapel of William Tell-Force of Local Emotion—Chamois-chaser—

Fiew of the higher Alps-Manner of Life of a Swiss
Mountaineer, interspersed with Views of the higher
Alps-Golden Age of the Alps-Life and Views con-
tinued― Ranz des Vaches, famous Swiss Air-Abbey
of Einsiedlen and its Pilgrims—Valley of Chamouny
-Mont Blanc-Slavery of Savoy-Influence of Li-
berty on Cottage Happiness-France-Wish for the
Extirpation of Slavery― Conclusion.

WERE there, below, a spot of holy ground
Where from distress a refuge might be found,
And solitude prepare the soul for heaven;
Sure, Nature's God that spot to man had given,
Where falls the purple morning far and wide
In flakes of light upon the mountain side;
Where with loud voice the power of waters shakes
The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.

Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam,
Who at the call of summer quits his home,
And plods through some far realm o'er vale and height,
Though seeking only holiday delight;

At least, not owning to himself an aim

To which the Sage would give a prouder name,
No gains too cheaply earn'd his fancy cloy,
Though every passing zephyr whispers joy;
Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease,
Feeds the clear current of his sympathies.
For him sod seats the cottage door adorn;
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourne!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread:
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upward he looks—«< and calls it luxury ;»
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend;
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
While chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestow'd
By Wisdom, moralise his pensive road.

Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the Sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre;'
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindly ray,
To light him shaken by his rugged way;
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal;
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with enquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care
Or desperate Love could lead a Wanderer there.

Me, lured by hope her sorrows to remove,
A heart that could not much herself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
Her road elms rustling high above my head,
Or through her truant pathways' native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms,
To where the Alps ascending white in air,
Toy with the sun, and glitter from afar.

Even now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I heave a sigh at hoary Chartreuse doom.

The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or chmerful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning года.

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Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed «< sober Reason» till she crouch'd in fear?
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms,
And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubled heads;
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads;
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start the astonish'd shades at female eyes.
That thundering tube the aged angler hears,
And swells the groaning torrent with his tears;
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross, with hideous laughter, Demons mock,
By angels planted on the aerial rock.
The parting Genius» sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death. 2
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre,3 'mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.

More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosom'd deep in chesnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
-To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain,
To ringing team unknown and grating wain,
To flat-roofd towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whiten'd wave their shadows fling:
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines,
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines;
The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades,
Or stops the solemu mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er the pictured mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills with tortoise foot they creep.
Here, half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darken'd roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.

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-Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky,
Thy towns, that cleave like swallows' nests, on high;
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descried
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods;
-Thy lake, 'mid smoking woods, that blue and grey
Gleams, streak'd or dappled, hid from morning's ray
Slow travelling down the western hills, to fold
Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold;
From thickly-glittering spires, the matin bell
Calling the woodman from his desert cell,
A summons to the sound of oars, that pass,
Spotting the steaming deeps, to early mass;
Slow swells the service, o'er the water borne,
While fill each pause the ringing woods of morn.
Farewell those forms that in thy noon-tide shade,
Rest, near their little plots of wheaten glade;
Those charms that bind the soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance.
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The sylvan cabin's lute-enliven'd gloom.
-Alas! the very murmur of the streams
Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams,
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge,
And winds, from bay to bay, the vocal barge.

Yet arts are thine that soothe the unquiet heart,
And smiles to Solitude and Want impart.
I loved by silent cottage-doors to roam,
The far-off peasant's day-deserted home;
And once I pierced the mazes of a wood,
Where, far from public haunt, a cabin stood;
There by the door a hoary-headed Sire
Touch'd with his wither'd hand an ancient lyre;
Beneath an old grey oak, as violets lie,
Stretch'd at his feet with stedfast, upward eye,
His children's children join'd the holy sound;
-A Hermit with his family around!

But let us hence, for fair Locarno smiles
Embower'd in walnut slopes and citron isles;
Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream,
While, 'mid dim towers and woods, her waters gleam;
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire
The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire,
To where afar rich orange lustres glow

Round undistinguish'd clouds, and rocks, and snow;
Or, led where Viamala's chasms confine
The indignant waters of the infant Rhine,
Hang o'er th' abyss: -the else impervious gloom
His burning eyes with fearful light illume.

The Grison gipsy here her tent hath placed,
Sole human tenant of the piny waste;
Her tawny skin, dark eyes, and glossy locks,
Bend o'er the smoke that curls beneath the rocks.
-The mind condemn'd, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train,
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain
Move on a mighty caravan of pain;

Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the waste of sand with shades and springs.
She, solitary, through the desert drear
Spontaneous wanders, hand in hand with Fear.

A giant moan along the forest swells
Protracted, and the twilight storm foretels,
And, ruining from the cliffs, their deafening load
Tumbles,-the wildering Thunder slips abroad;
On the high summits Darkness comes and goes,
Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows;
The torrent, traversed by the lustre broad,
Starts like a horse beside the flashing road;
In the roof'd bridge,' at that terrific hour,
She seeks a shelter from the battering show'r.
-Fierce comes the river down; the crashing wood
Gives way, and half its pines torment the flood;
Fearful, beneath, the Water-spirits call, 2
And the bridge vibrates, tottering to its fall.

-Heavy, and dull, and cloudy is the night;
No star supplies the comfort of its light,
Glimmer the dim-lit Alps, dilated round,
And one sole light shifts in the vale profound;
While, opposite, the waning Moon hangs still,
And red, above her melancholy hill.

By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs,
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes.
She hears, upon the mountain-forest's brow,
The death-dog, howling loud and long, below;
On viewless fingers counts the valley-clock,
Follow'd by drowsy crow of midnight cock.
The dry leaves stir as with a serpent's walk,
And, far beneath, Banditti voices talk;
Behind her hill, the Moon, all crimson, rides,
And his red eyes the slinking water hides.
-Vex'd by the darkness, from the piny gulf
Ascending, nearer howls the famish'd wolf,
While through the stillness scatters wild dismay
Her babe's small cry, that leads him to his prey.

Now, passing Urseren's open vale serene,
Her quiet streams, and hills of downy green,
Plunge with the Russ embrown'd by Terror's breath,
Where danger roofs the narrow walks of death;
By floods, that, thundering from their dizzy height,
Swell more gigantic on the stedfast sight;
Black drizzling crags, that, beaten by the din,
Vibrate, as if a voice complain'd within;
Bare steeps, where Desolation stalks, afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstay'd;
By cells 3 whose image, trembling as he prays,
Awe-struck, the kneeling peasant scarce surveys;
Loose-hanging rocks the Day's bless'd eye that hide,
And crosses rear'd to Death on every side,

Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered: these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of the scenery in some places.

Red came the river down, and loud, and oft
The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd.
HOME's Douglas.

The Catholic religion prevails here; these cells are, as is well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the Roman tombs, along the road side.

4 Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the Alps snow and other accidents are very common along this dreadful by the Simplon Pass.

road.

Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near,
And, bending, water'd with the human tear,
That faded « silent » from her upward eye,
Unmoved with each rude form of Danger nigh,
Fix'd on the anchor left by him who saves
Alike in whelming snows and roaring waves.

On as we move, a softer prospect opes,
Calm huts, and lawns between, and sylvan slopes.
While mists, suspended on th' expiring gale,
Moveless o'erhang the deep secluded vale,
The beams of evening slipping soft between,
Gently illuminate a sober scene;

Winding its dark-green wood and emerald glade,
The still vale lengthens underneath the shade;
While in soft gloom the scattering bowers recede,
Green dewy lights adorn the freshen'd mead,
On the low brown wood-huts delighted sleep
Along the brighten'd gloom reposing deep.
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before the admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through drizzling showers.

From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake!
Lo! Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake,
Where by th' unpathway'd margin, still and dread,
Was never heard the plodding peasant's tread.
Tower like a wall the naked rocks, or reach
Far o'er the secret water dark with beech;
More high, to where creation seems to end,
Shade above shade, th' aerial pines ascend,
Yet with his infants man undaunted creeps
And hangs his small wood-cabin on the steeps.
Where'er below amid the savage scene
Peeps out a little speck of smiling green,
A garden-plot the desert air perfumes,
Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms;
A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff,
Threading the painful crag surmounts the cliff.
-Before those hermit doors that never know
The face of traveller passing to and fro,
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning toll'd the funeral bell;
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,
Touch'd by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The grassy seat beneath their casement shade
The pilgrim's wistful eye hath never stay'd.
-There, did the iron Genius not disdain
The gentle Power that haunts this myrtle plain,
There might the love-sick maiden sit, and chide
The insuperable rocks and severing tide;
There watch at eve her lover's sun-gilt sail
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale;
There list at midnight till is heard no more,
Below, the echo of his parting oar.

'Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry,
Hovering o'er rugged wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful ear;
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripen'd pear in summer's kindliest ray;
The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built of
wood.

Even here Content has fix'd her smiling reign
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often eyes;
Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine,
Strange « weeds » and Alpine plants her helm entwine,
And, wildly-pausing, oft she hangs aghast,
While thrills the « Spartan fife,» between the blast.

'Tis storm; and, hid in mist from hour to hour, All day the floods a deepening murmur pour; The sky is veil'd, and every cheerful sight: Dark is the region as with coming night; But what a sudden burst of overpowering light! Triumphant on the bosom of the storm, Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form; Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine The wood-crown'd cliffs that o'er the lake recline; Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold, At once to pillars turn'd that flame with gold: Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun The west that burns like one dilated sun, Where in a mighty crucible expire The mountains, glowing-hot, like coals of fire.

But lo! the Boatman, overaw'd, before The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar; Confused the Marathonian tale appears, While burn in his full eyes the glorious tears. And who that walks where men of ancient days Have wrought with God-like arm the deeds of praise, Feels not the spirit of the place control, Exalt, and agitate his labouring soul? Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills, Or wild Aosta lull'd by Alpine rills,

On Zutphen's plain; or where, with soften'd gaze,

The old grey stones the plaided chief surveys;

Can guess the high resolve, the cherish'd pain

Of him whom passion rivets to the plain,

Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest

sigh,

And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye;
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee in « faint huzzas » expired!

But now with other mind I stand alone
Upon the summit of this naked cone,
And watch, from pike to pike,' amid the sky
Small as a bird the chamois chaser fly,

2 Through vacant worlds where Nature never gave

A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;

Through worlds where Life, and Sound, and Motion sleep;

Where Silence still her death-like reign extends,
Save when the startling cliff unfrequent rends:

In the deep snow the mighty ruin drown'd,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound.
-T is his while wandering on, from height to height,
To see a planet's pomp and steady light
In the least star of scarce-appearing night,

Pike is a word very commonly used in the north of England, to signify a high mountain of the conic form, as Langdale-pike, etc. For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his translation of Coxe's Tour in Switzerland.

While the near Moon, that coasts the vast profound
Wheels pale and silent her diminish'd 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.
Then with Despair's whole weight his spirits sink,
No bread to feed him and the snow his drink,

While, ere his eyes can close upon the day,
The eagle of the Alps o'ershades her prey.

Hence shall we turn where, heard with fear afar, Thunders through echoing pines the headlong Aar? Or rather stay to waste 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 from 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 herds that, pasturing upward, creep,
Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep,
Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, 'mid the quiet of the sky.
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,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-wood's steady sugh ;3
The solitary heifer's deepen'd low;

Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow;
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.

When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas, Comes on, to whisper hope, the vernal breeze, When hums the mountain-bee in May's glad ear, And emerald isles to spot the heights appear, When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill, And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill, When fragrant scents beneath the enchanted tread Spring up, his choicest wealth around him spread, The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale, To silence leaving the deserted vale;

Mounts, where the verdure leads, from stage to stage, And pastures on as in the Patriarchs' age:

O'er lofty heights serene and still they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below;
They cross the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rock'd on the dizzy larch's narrow tread;
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterr'd,
That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd.
-I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps,
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws,
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more blest in times of yore;
Then Summer lengthened out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flow'd the happy land.
Continual fountains welling cheer'd 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 forced the herds from pastures bare
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bade those herds demand
Three times a-day the pail and welcome hand.
But human vices have provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Thus does the father to his sons relate,

On the lone mountain top, their changed estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.

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'Tis morn with gold the verdant mountain glows, More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose. Far-stretch beneath the many-tinted hills

A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,

A solemn sea! whose vales and mountains round
Stand motionless, to awful silence bound.

A gulf of gloomy blue, that opens wide
And bottomless, divides the midway tide.
Like leaning masts of stranded ships appear
The pines that near the coast their summits rear;
Of cabins, woods, and lawns a pleasant shore
Bounds calm and clear the chaos still and hoar;
Loud through that midway gulf ascending, sound
Unnumber'd streams with hollow roar profound:
Mount through the nearer mist the chant 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,
He looks below with undelighted eye.
-No vulgar joy is his, at even-tide
Stretch'd on the scented mountain's purple side.
For as the pleasures of his simple day
Beyond his native valley seldom stray,
Nought round its darling precincts can he find
But brings some past enjoyment to his mind,
While Hope, that ceaseless leans on Pleasure's urn,
Binds her wild wreaths, and whispers his return.

Once Man, entirely free, alone and wild, Was bless'd as free-for he was Nature's child. He, all superior but his God disdain'd,

The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more melan-Walk'd none restraining, and by none restrain'd, choly disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps; this, if true, may proceed from their living more secluded.

* This picture is from the middle region of the Alps.

Confess'd no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wish'd, and wish'd but what he ought.

Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through As Man in his primeval dower array'd

the trees.

The image of his glorious Sire display'd,

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