On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc ! Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form! Around thee and above O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thoughts, Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale! (1) The dilating soul, &c.-i. e. the soul expanding, as it were, with the conceptions suggested by the sublime scene, to its natural dimensions, swelled even to heaven. A similar thought occurs in "Childe Harold" (canto iv. 155), in reference to the effect produced on the mind by the view of St. Peter's at Rome:"Thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal." (2) Thyself earth's rosy star-Mont Blanc is here spoken of as a star, because of the height of its summit above the vale-a rosy star because its peak is flushed at dawn with the rosy tints reflected from the clouds, so that it becomes in this way co-herald of the dawn, with the morning-star. Co-herald! wake, O wake, and utter praise! And you, ye five wild torrents,' fiercely glad! Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, And who commanded-and the silence came- Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven, God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! (1) "Besides the rivers Arvé and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides."-Coleridge. (2) Invulnerable life-The conception of some of the torrents as endued with "invulnerable life," and exhibiting all the attributes of human power, passion, and joy, is finely contrasted with that below of others "stopped at once," and converted into "Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!" (3) Living flowers, &c.-The Gentiana Major, with its lovely blue corolla, is one of the flowers found in countless myriads "skirting the eternal frost" like a garland. (4) Soul-like sounds-i. e. such aërial sounds as might be fancifully attributed to invisible spirits. Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Coleridge. ODE TO EVENING.2 Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, Thy springs, and dying gales, O nymph reserved! while now the bright-haired sun With brede ethereal wove, (1) Unheard from its great height. (2) Sir Egerton Brydges says of this ode:-" Such a scene of enchanting repose was never exhibited by Claude, or any other among the happiest of painters. It is vain to attempt to analyse the charm of this ode; it is so subtle, that it escapes analysis. Its harmony is so perfect, that it requires no rhyme. The objects are so happily chosen, and the simple epithets convey ideas and feelings so congenial to each other, as to throw the reader into the very mood over which the personified being so beautifully designed presides. No other poem on the same subject has the same magic." (3) Oaten stop-The ancient shepherd's pipe was sometimes made of oat-straw. (4) Brede (or braid) ethereal wove. The clouds woven into a sort of airy fringe. hang like a curtain over the sea-the sun's "wavy bed;" an exquisite concep tion! 1 Now air is hushed,' save where the weak-eyed bat, His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, For when thy folding-star arising shows And Who slept in buds the day, many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; (1) Now air, &c.-i. e. and now while, &c., teach me, maid composed, &c. (2) For, &c.-i e. let me aid by some "softened strain" to celebrate thy loved return, for inasmuch as other votaries of thine--the hours, elves, &c.--are now preparing to greet thee too. (3) That, from, &c.-"In what short and simple terms does he (Collins) open a wide and majestic landscape to the mind, such as we might view from Benlomond or Snowdon, when he speaks of the hut that, from,' &c."-Campbell. While Spring1 shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Collins. TO THE MEMORY OF THOMSON.3 WHILE virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, While Autumn, benefactor kind, (1) While Spring, &c.-It has been remarked that to these three last verses Burns was indebted for the leading idea contained in the next poem. He had been reading Collins at the time he wrote it. (2) Breathing-i e. breathing perfume; in allusion perhaps to the fragrance exhaled in the evening from trees, shrubs, and flowers (the "tresses"), after a shower. (3) These lines were written on occasion of the crowning of the bust of Thomson, at Ednam, Roxburghshire, the place of his birth. The rivers named in the poem are in the same district. (4) Eolian strains-strains like those of the Æolian harp. |