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| I ’VE roamed amongst the eternal Alps. I ’ve stood | |
| And gazed on the diminished world below; | |
| Marking, at frightful distance, field and flood, | |
| And spire and town, like things of pygmy show, | |
| Shrink into nothing: while those peaks of snow | 5 |
| (Which yet the winds themselves but seldom climb) | |
| Arose like giants from the void below, | |
| But fashioned all for everlasting time: | |
| Imperishable things,—unstained, as ’t were, by crime. | |
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| O ye unbending mountains! if ye be | 10 |
| Aught more than human view may contemplate,— | |
| If on your crowned heads the Deity | |
| Rests his bright foot eternal, when in state | |
| He bends arrayed in lightnings, consecrate | |
| Then stand forever. Perchance your heavenward look | 15 |
| Infused such feeling, strong and elevate, | |
| That madness in the soul’s bright temple shook. | |
| Silent ye pointed high. I read as from a book. | |
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| Sacred ye are. The very eye of God | |
| Darts roses on ye as it shuts at even. | 20 |
| The earthquake on your breast hath never trod; | |
| Nor in vast fragments have your limbs been riven; | |
| Nor through your heart the red volcano driven, | |
| That foams in lava-cataracts from its bound; | |
| Or flings its blazing columns up to heaven, | 25 |
| Sinking in darkening ashes on the ground. | |
| Thus Hecla, Etna feel; and all, save ye, around. | |
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