THE world has seen strange change; yet here art thou Mont Blanc, while renerations pass away; Thy vast heights glistening with untrodden snow, There among Nature's miracles I'll pray To Nature's Deity; how vast the scene! The loveliest works of God-the grandest too are seen! M283523 Here from our slumbers light we rise to feel The consciousness of being; fresh and free That was, that is, and shall for ever be. The Omnipresence of the Deity; Best emblems of his wisdom, power, and love, 1 The golden sun has colour'd all the woods! There Winter's fetter'd in his icy bed Steeps rise o'er steeps immeasurably vast While the rude crags projecting over-head Strike in the stoutest hearts a momentary dread! Th' ambitious rhododendron climbs the snow, Pines darken round the mountain's sides, behold, A thousand rills from icy caverns flow, Rushing o'er rocks irregularly bold, Where the tenacious sapling keeps its hold: Below, the dark stream with collected force Still rolling on as it has ever roll'd Through the wide plains shapes its resistless course, As rude as Ocean's self; as grand as is its source. Look on these glorious wonders, think of Him, With gazing on these heights, as we advance Startling the ear; still at a vast distance The masses of thick-ribbed ice appal The soul, as if they form'd the world's extremest wall! The prospect lengthens, far and far beneath While the smoke rises in a frequent wreath Self-planted, by thick-woven shrubs embraced; They with their towering grandeur long will pleaseHow can the spoiler's axe fell forests such as these? The buoyancy of spirits, the wild hope Of giving thus to all my feelings scope, Whose rapid course no sudden squalls annoy; Light as the young chamois, blythe as the mountain lark! |