Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Sydney Dobell (1824–1874)

Chamouni

Thou hast known anywhere amid a storm

Of thunder, when the Heavens and Earth were moved,

A gleam of quiet sunshine that hath saved

Thine heart; or where the earthquake hath made wreck,

Knowest a stream, that wandereth fair and sweet

As brooks go singing thro’ the fields of home;

Or on a sudden when the sea, distent

With windy pride, upriseth thro’ the clouds

To set his great head equal with the stars,

Hast sunk Hell-deep, thy noble ship a straw

Betwixt two billows; or in any wild

Barbaric, hast, with half-drawn breath, passed by

The sleeping savage, dreadful still in sleep,

Scarred by a thousand combats, by his side

His rugged spouse—in aught but sex a chief—

Their babe between; or where the stark roof-tree

Of a burnt home blackened and sear lies dark,

Betwixt the gaunt-ribbed ruin, hast thou seen

The rose of peace; or in some donjon deep,

Rent by a giant in the blasted rock

And proof against his peers,—hast thou beheld

Prone in the gloom, naked and shining sad

In her own light of loveliness, a fair

Daughter of Eve: Then as thou seest God

In some material likeness, less and more,

Thou hast seen Chamouni, ’mid sternest Alps

The gentlest valley; bright meandering track

Of summer when she winds among the snows

From Land to Land.