THE world has seen strange change; yet here art thou

Mont Blanc, while renerations pass away;

Thy vast heights glistening with untrodden snow,
On which the sun at eve imprints his ray;
There lingers yet the mild farewell of day.
The blue lake sleeps below in tranquil sheen;

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!

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Here from our slumbers light we rise to feel

The consciousness of being; fresh and free
The soul pours forth its orisons with zeal
To the great Spirit of Eternity

That was, that is, and shall for ever be.
The fertile vallies, giant mountains, prove

The Omnipresence of the Deity;

Best emblems of his wisdom, power, and love,
Pervading all things here around, below, above.

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The golden sun has colour'd all the woods!
Fresh views succeed; each brighter than the last!
There barren rocks are channell'd by the floods,
Here Flora's beauties cannot be surpast.
Lausanne, an universe of charms thou hast;

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,
Lord of a million worlds that have perchance
Greater phenomena, mine eyes grow dim,

With gazing on these heights, as we advance
Now all things seem envelop'd in a trance,
Save when at times the avalanche doth fall,

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
See cities, mansions, beautifully placed,

While the smoke rises in a frequent wreath
From cottages by greenest arbours graced.
These, like man's proudest works, may be defaced
By war's unsparing hand; but yonder trees,

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 something indefinable, the joy

Of giving thus to all my feelings scope,
Feelings, which man's injustice can't destroy;
These bring back former years, and I'm a boy
Joyful as sailor in his bounding bark;

Whose rapid course no sudden squalls annoy;
Wild as the stag that spurns his narrow park,

Light as the young chamois, blythe as the mountain lark!