Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal, Soft music from the aërial summit steal?
While o'er the desart, 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,
Hung dim-discovered 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-woods steady sugh +;
The solitary heifer's deepened low;
Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow;
* This picture is from the middle region of the Alps. + Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the trees.
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 Patriarch's 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,
Rocked 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 flowed the happy land.
Continual fountains 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 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
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.
-'Tis morn: with gold the verdant mountain glows,
More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose.
Far stretched 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 thro' that midway gulf ascending, sound
Unnumber'd streams with hollow roar profound:
Mount thro' the nearer mist the chaunt 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 wreathes, 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,
Walk'd none restraining, and by none restrain❜d,
Confess'd no law but what his reason taught,
Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought.
As Man in his primæval dower array'd
The image of his glorious sire display'd,
Even so, by vestal Nature guarded, here
The traces of primæval Man appear.
The native dignity no forms debase,
The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace.
The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord,
He marches with his flute, his book, and sword;
Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared
With this "the blessings he enjoys to guard."
And, as his native hills encircle ground
For many a wonderous victory renown'd,
The work of Freedom daring to oppose,
With few in arms,* innumerable foes,
* Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small númbers have gained over their oppressors the house of Austria; and in particular, to one fought at Næffels near Glarus, where three hundred and thirty men defeated an army of between fif
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