No More Learning

140

Yet are thy softer arts with power indued
To soothe and cheer the poor man's solitude.
By silent cottage-doors, the peasant's home
Left vacant for the day, I loved to roam. [40]
But once I pierced the mazes of a wood 145
In which a cabin undeserted stood; [41]
There an old man an olden measure scanned
On a rude viol touched with withered hand. [42]
As lambs or fawns in April clustering lie [43]
Under a hoary oak's thin canopy, 150
Stretched at his feet, with stedfast upward eye,
His children's children listened to the sound; [44]
--A Hermit with his family around!

But let us hence; for fair Locarno smiles
Embowered in walnut slopes and citron isles: 155
Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream,
Where, [45] 'mid dim towers and woods, her [M] waters gleam.
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire
The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire
To where afar rich orange lustres glow 160
Round undistinguished clouds, and rocks, and snow:
Or, led where Via Mala's chasms confine
The indignant waters of the infant Rhine,
Hang o'er the abyss, whose else impervious gloom [46]
His burning eyes with fearful light illume. 165

The mind condemned, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe,
With sad congratulation joins the train
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain
Move on--a mighty caravan of pain: 170
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the wilderness with shades and springs.
--There be whose lot far otherwise is cast:
Sole human tenant of the piny waste, [47]
By choice or doom a gipsy wanders here, 175
A nursling babe her only comforter;
Lo, where she sits beneath yon shaggy rock,
A cowering shape half hid in curling smoke! [48]

When lightning among clouds and mountain-snows
Predominates, and darkness comes and goes, 180
And the fierce torrent, at the flashes broad
Starts, like a horse, beside the glaring road--
She seeks a covert from the battering shower
In the roofed bridge [N]; the bridge, in that dread hour,
Itself all trembling at the torrent's power. [49] 185

Nor is she more at ease on some _still_ night,
When not a star supplies the comfort of its light;
Only the waning moon hangs dull and red
Above a melancholy mountain's head,
Then sets. In total gloom the Vagrant sighs, 190
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes;
Or on her fingers counts the distant clock,
Or, to the drowsy crow of midnight cock,
Listens, or quakes while from the forest's gulf
Howls near and nearer yet the famished wolf. [50] 195

From the green vale of Urseren smooth and wide
Descend we now, the maddened Reuss our guide; [51]
By rocks that, shutting out the blessed day,
Cling tremblingly to rocks as loose as they;
By cells [P] upon whose image, while he prays, 200
The kneeling peasant scarcely dares to gaze;
By many a votive death-cross [Q] planted near,
And watered duly with the pious tear,
That faded silent from the upward eye
Unmoved with each rude form of peril nigh; [52] 205
Fixed on the anchor left by Him who saves
Alike in whelming snows, and roaring waves.

But soon a peopled region on the sight
Opens--a little world of calm delight; [53]
Where mists, suspended on the expiring gale, 210
Spread roof like o'er the deep secluded vale, [54]
And beams of evening slipping in between,
Gently illuminate a sober scene:--[55]
Here, on the brown wood-cottages [R] they sleep, [56]
There, over rock or sloping pasture creep. [57] 215
On as we journey, in clear view displayed,
The still vale lengthens underneath its shade
Of low-hung vapour: on the freshened mead
The green light sparkles;--the dim bowers recede. [58]
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull, 220
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before the admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through gleamy [59] showers.
225

From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake!
To sterner pleasure, where, by Uri's lake
In Nature's pristine majesty outspread,
Winds neither road nor path for foot to tread: [60]
The rocks rise naked as a wall, or stretch, 230
Far o'er the water, hung with groves of beech; [61]
Aerial pines from loftier steeps ascend,
Nor stop but where creation seems to end. [62]
Yet here and there, if 'mid the savage scene
Appears a scanty plot of smiling green, 235
Up from the lake a zigzag path will creep
To reach a small wood-hut hung boldly on the steep. [63]
--Before those thresholds (never can they know [64]
The face of traveller passing to and fro,)
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell 240
For whom at morning tolled the funeral bell;
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,
Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat
To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. [65] 245
Yet thither the world's business finds its way
At times, and tales unsought beguile the day,
And _there_ are those fond thoughts which Solitude, [66]
However stern, is powerless to exclude. [67]
There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail 250
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale;
At midnight listens till his parting oar,
And its last echo, can be heard no more. [68]

And what if ospreys, cormorants, herons cry,
Amid tempestuous vapours driving by, [69] 255
Or hovering over wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful ear; [70]
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray; [71]
Contentment shares the desolate domain [72] 260
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And grasps by fits her sword, and often eyes;
And sometimes, as from rock to rock she bounds 265
The Patriot nymph starts at imagined sounds,
And, wildly pausing, oft she hangs aghast,
Whether some old Swiss air hath checked her haste
Or thrill of Spartan fife is caught between the blast. [73]

Swoln with incessant rains from hour to hour, [74] 270
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour:
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight:
Dark is the region as with coming night;
But what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm, 275
Glances the wheeling eagle's glorious form! [75]
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Those lofty cliffs a hundred streams unfold, [76]
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold: 280
Behind his sail the peasant shrinks, to shun
The _west_, [77] that burns like one dilated sun,
A crucible of mighty compass, felt
By mountains, glowing till they seem to melt. [78]

But, lo! the boatman, overawed, before 285
The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears,
While his eyes sparkle with heroic tears. [79]
And who, that walks where men of ancient days
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise, 290
Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Or rouse [80] and agitate his labouring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or on that highland dell, 295
Through which rough Garry cleaves his way, can tell
What high resolves exalt the tenderest thought
Of him whom passion rivets to the spot, [81]
Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye; 300
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" [S] expired?

But now with other mind I stand alone
Upon the summit of this naked cone,
And watch the fearless chamois-hunter chase 305
His prey, through tracts abrupt of desolate space, [82]
[T] Through vacant worlds where Nature never gave
A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep;
Thro' worlds where Life, and Voice, and Motion sleep; 310
Where silent Hours their death-like sway extend,
Save when the avalanche breaks loose, to rend
Its way with uproar, till the ruin, drowned
In some dense wood or gulf of snow profound,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound.