Bymn before Sunrise,
IN THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNY.
HAST thou a charm to stay the Morning Star
In his steep course? so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, Oh Sovereign Blanc ?
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
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,
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,
I worshipped the invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my Life, and Life's own secret joy,
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing,-there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!
Awake my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret extacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale!
Oh struggling with the darkness all night long,
And all night visited 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
Coherald wake, Oh wake, and utter praise!
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,
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,
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—
Torrents, methinks, that head a mighty Voice,
And stopped at once, amidst 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
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!
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!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
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!
Thou, too, hoar Mount, with thy sky pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet, the Avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depths of clouds, that veil thy breast,
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me,-Rise, Oh ever rise!
Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
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!
WHERE'ER thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles,
Where'er there lingers but a shade of wrong,
There still is need of martyrs and apostles,
There still is need of never dying song.
Co the Memory of Daniel Wheeler.
And worthy of our love! No more
Thy aged form shall rise before
The hushed and waiting worshipper,
In meek obedience, utterance giving
To words of truth, so fresh and living
That ever to the inward sense
They bore unquestioned evidence
Of an anointed messenger!-
Or, bowing down thy silver hair
In reverent awfulness of prayer,
The world-its times and sense-shut out,
The brightness of Faith's holy trance.
Gathered upon thy countenance,
As if each lingering cloud of doubt-
The cold dark shadows floating here,
In Time's unluminous atmosphere
Were parted by an angel's hand,
And through them on thy spiritual eye
Shone down the blessedness on high-
The glory of the better land.
We mourn for thee:
Yet, full of hope and strong in faith
That, through the ministry of death,
From weary works our blessed Lord
Hath called thee to the rich reward,
Of those who in His holy name
Have borne the cross-despised the shame,
And counted not their own lives dear;
Knowing no other will than His—
Nor hope but of His love-nor fear
|