Whither is fled that Power whose frown

severe

Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? That Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound,

Chains that were loosened only by the sound Of holy rites chanted in measured round? -The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms, The cloister startles at the gleam of arms. The thundering tube the aged angler hears, Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears.

Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads,

Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling, And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling

The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines;

And Silence loves its purple roof of vines. The loitering traveller hence, at evening, sees From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;

Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair darkeyed maids

Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;

steep,

As up the opposing hills they slowly creep.
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; half hides itself in shade :
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the
spire,

Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake 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.

How blest, delicious scene! the eye that

greets

Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats; Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales

Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore, Each with its household boat beside the door;

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 en

chanted woods

Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods; Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue

or grey,

'Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's ray

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 gleamy showers.

From such romantic dreams, my soul,

awake!

To sterner pleasure, where, by Uri's lake In Nature's pristine majesty outspread, Winds neither road nor path for foot to tread:

The rocks rise naked as a wall, or stretch Far o'er the water, hung with groves of beech;

Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend,
Nor stop but where creation seems to end.
Yet here and there, if mid the savage scene
Appears a scanty plot of smiling green,
Up from the lake a zigzag path will creep
To reach a small wood-hut hung boldly on
the steep,

-Before those thresholds (never can they know

The face of traveller passing to and fro,)
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning tolled the funeral
bell;

Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,

Touched by the beggar's moan of human

woes;

The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. Yet thither the world's business finds its way At times, and tales unsought beguile the day,

And there are those fond thoughts which Solitude,

However stern, is powerless to exclude. There doth the maiden watch her lover's

sail

Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale ;
At midnight listens till his parting oar,
And its last echo, can be heard no more.
And what if ospreys, cormorants, herons,

cry

Amid tempestuous vapours driving by,
Or hovering over wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful

ear;

Where the green apple shrivels on the spray, And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray;

Contentment shares the desolate domain With Independence, child of high Disdain. Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,

Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies, And grasps by fits her sword, and often

eyes;

And sometimes, as from rock to rock she bounds

The Patriot nymph starts at imagined

sounds,

And, wildly pausing, oft she hangs aghast, Whether some old Swiss air hath checked her haste

Or thrill of Spartan fife is caught between the blast.

Swoln with incessant rains from hour to hour,

All day the floods a deepening murmur

pour :

The sky is veiled, 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 wheeling eagle's glorious form! Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine

The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline;

Those lofty cliffs a hundred streams unfold,

At once to pillars turned that flame with gold:

Behind his sail the peasant shrinks, to shun
The west, that burns like one dilated sun,
A crucible of mighty compass, felt
By mountains, glowing till they seem to
melt.

But, lo! the boatman, overawed, before The pictured fane of Tell suspends his

oar;

Confused the Marathonian tale appears, While his eyes sparkle with heroic tears. And who, that walks where men of ancient days

Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds

of praise,

Feels not the spirit of the place control, Or rouse and agitate his labouring soul? Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills, Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,

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;

1 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.

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 1 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 aërial 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-woods' steady
sugh; 3

1 The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more melancholy disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps; this, if true, may proceed from their living more secluded.

2 This picture is from the middle region of the Alps. Chalets are summer huts for the Swiss herdsmen.

3 Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the trees.

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.

When, from the sunny breast of open

seas,

And bays with myrtle fringed, the southern breeze

Comes on to gladden April with the sight Of green isles widening on each snow-clad height;

When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,

And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
The pastoral Swiss begin the cliffs to scale,
Leaving to silence the deserted vale;
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! Then Summer lingered long; and honey flowed

From out the rocks, the wild bees' safe abode :

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.