| |
| HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star | |
| In his steep course? So long he seems to pause | |
| On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc! | |
| The Arve and Arveiron at thy base | |
| Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form, | 5 |
| Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines | |
| How silently! Around thee and above, | |
| Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black— | |
| An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it, | |
| As with a wedge! But when I look again, | 10 |
| It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, | |
| Thy habitation from eternity! | |
| O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, | |
| Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, | |
| Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer | 15 |
| I worshipped the Invisible alone. | |
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| Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, | |
| So sweet we know not we are listening to it, | |
| Thou, the mean while, wast blending with my thought,— | |
| Yea, with my life and life’s own secret joy,— | 20 |
| Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, | |
| Into the mighty vision passing, there, | |
| As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! | |
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| Awake, my soul! not only passive praise | |
| Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, | 25 |
| Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, | |
| Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! | |
| Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. | |
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| Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! | |
| O, struggling with the darkness all the night, | 30 |
| And visited all night by troops of stars, | |
| Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink, | |
| Companion of the morning-star at dawn, | |
| Thyself Earth’s rosy star, and of the dawn | |
| Co-herald,—wake, O, wake, and utter praise! | 35 |
| Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? | |
| Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? | |
| Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? | |
| |
| And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! | |
| Who called you forth from night and utter death, | 40 |
| From dark and icy caverns called you forth, | |
| Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, | |
| Forever shattered and the same forever? | |
| Who gave you your invulnerable life, | |
| Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, | 45 |
| Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? | |
| And who commanded (and the silence came), | |
| Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest? | |
| |
| Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s brow | |
| Adown enormous ravines slope amain,— | 50 |
| Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, | |
| And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! | |
| Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! | |
| Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven | |
| Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun | 55 |
| Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers | |
| Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? | |
| God!—let the torrents, like a shout of nations, | |
| Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! | |
| God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! | 60 |
| Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! | |
| And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, | |
| And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God! | |
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| Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! | |
| Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest! | 65 |
| Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! | |
| Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! | |
| Ye signs and wonders of the elements! | |
| Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! | |
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| Thou, too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, | 70 |
| Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, | |
| Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, | |
| Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,— | |
| Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou | |
| That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low | 75 |
| In adoration, upward from thy base | |
| Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, | |
| Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, | |
| To rise before me,—Rise, O, ever rise! | |
| Rise, like a cloud of incense from the Earth! | 80 |
| Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, | |
| Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, | |
| Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, | |
| And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, | |
| Earth with her thousand voices, praises God. | 85 |
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