No More Learning

200

A giant moan along the forest swells
Protracted, and the twilight storm foretells,
And, ruining from the cliffs their deafening load
Tumbles, the wildering Thunder slips abroad;
On the high summits Darkness comes and goes, 205
Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows;
The torrent, travers'd by the lustre broad,
Starts like a horse beside the flashing road;
In the roof'd [J] bridge, at that despairing hour,
She seeks a shelter from the battering show'r. 210
--Fierce comes the river down; the crashing wood
Gives way, and half it's pines torment the flood;
[K] Fearful, beneath, the Water-spirits call,
And the bridge vibrates, tottering to its fall.

--Heavy, and dull, and cloudy is the night, 215
No star supplies the comfort of it's light,
Glimmer the dim-lit Alps, dilated, round,
And one sole light shifts in the vale profound;
While, opposite, the waning moon hangs still,
And red, above her melancholy hill. 220
By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs,
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes.
--Breaking th' ascending roar of desert floods,
And insect buzz, that stuns the sultry woods,
She hears, upon the mountain forest's brow, 225
The death-dog, howling loud and long, below;
On viewless fingers counts the valley-clock,
Followed by drowsy crow of midnight cock.
--Bursts from the troubl'd Larch's giant boughs
The pie, and chattering breaks the night's repose. 230
Low barks the fox; by Havoc rouz'd the bear,
Quits, growling, the white bones that strew his lair;
The dry leaves stir as with the serpent's walk,
And, far beneath, Banditti voices talk;
Behind her hill the Moon, all crimson, rides, 235
And his red eyes the slinking Water hides;
Then all is hush'd; the bushes rustle near,
And with strange tinglings sings her fainting ear.
--Vex'd by the darkness, from the piny gulf
Ascending, nearer howls the famish'd wolf, 240
While thro' the stillness scatters wild dismay,
Her babe's small cry, that leads him to his prey.

Now, passing Urseren's open vale serene,
Her quiet streams, and hills of downy green,
Plunge with the Russ embrown'd by Terror's breath, 245
Where danger roofs the narrow walks of death;
By floods, that, thundering from their dizzy height,
Swell more gigantic on the stedfast sight;
Black drizzling craggs, that beaten by the din,
Vibrate, as if a voice complain'd within; 250
Bare steeps, where Desolation stalks, afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstay'd;
By [L] cells whose image, trembling as he prays,
Awe-struck, the kneeling peasant scarce surveys;
Loose-hanging rocks the Day's bless'd eye that hide, 255
And [M] crosses rear'd to Death on every side,
Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near,
And, bending, water'd with the human tear,
Soon fading "silent" from her upward eye,
Unmov'd with each rude form of Danger nigh, 260
Fix'd on the anchor left by him who saves
Alike in whelming snows and roaring waves.

On as we move, a softer prospect opes,
Calm huts, and lawns between, and sylvan slopes.
While mists, suspended on th' expiring gale, 265
Moveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale,
The beams of evening, slipping soft between,
Light up of tranquil joy a sober scene;
Winding it's dark-green wood and emerald glade,
The still vale lengthens underneath the shade; 270
While in soft gloom the scattering bowers recede,
Green dewy lights adorn the freshen'd mead,
Where solitary forms illumin'd stray
Turning with quiet touch the valley's hay,
On the low [N] brown wood-huts delighted sleep 275
Along the brighten'd gloom reposing deep.
While pastoral pipes and streams the landscape lull,
And bells of passing mules that tinkle dull,
In solemn shapes before th' admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high, 280
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and tow'rs,
And antique castles seen tho' drizzling show'rs.

From such romantic dreams my sould awake,
Lo! Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake,
By whose unpathway'd margin still and dread 285
Was never heard the plodding peasant's tread.
Tower like a wall the naked rocks, or reach
Far o'er the secret water dark with beech,
More high, to where creation seems to end,
Shade above shade the desert pines ascend, 290
And still, below, where mid the savage scene
Peeps out a little speck of smilgin green,
There with his infants man undaunted creeps
And hangs his small wood-hut upon the steeps.
A garden-plot the desert air perfumes, 295
Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms,
A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff
Threading the painful cragg surmounts the cliff.
--Before those hermit doors, that never know
The face of traveller passing to and fro, 300
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning toll'd the funeral bell,
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark forgoes,
Touch'd by the beggar's moan of human woes,
The grass seat beneath their casement shade 305
The pilgrim's wistful eye hath never stay'd.
--There, did the iron Genius not disdain
The gentle Power that haunts the myrtle plain,
There might the love-sick maiden sit, and chide
Th' insuperable rocks and severing tide, 310
There watch at eve her lover's sun-gilt sail
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale,
There list at midnight till is heard no more,
Below, the echo of his parting oar,
There hang in fear, when growls the frozen stream, 315
To guide his dangerous tread the taper's gleam.

Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry,
Where hardly giv'n the hopeless waste to chear,
Deny'd the bread of life the foodful ear, 320
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray,
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray,
Ev'n here Content has fix'd her smiling reign
With Independance child of high Disdain.
Exulting mid the winter of the skies, 325
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often eyes,
Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine,
Strange "weeds" and alpine plants her helm entwine,
And wildly-pausing oft she hangs aghast, 330
While thrills the "Spartan fife" between the blast.

'Tis storm; and hid in mist from hour to hour
All day the floods a deeper murmur pour,
And mournful sounds, as of a Spirit lost,
Pipe wild along the hollow-blustering coast, 335
'Till the Sun walking on his western field
Shakes from behind the clouds his flashing shield.
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form;
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 340
The wood-crown'd cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turn'd that flame with gold;
Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun
The west that burns like one dilated sun, 345
Where in a mighty crucible expire
The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire. [O]

But lo! the boatman, over-aw'd, before
The pictur'd fane of Tell suspends his oar;
Confused the Marathonian tale appears, 350
While burn in his full eyes the glorious tears.
And who but feels a power of strong controul,
Felt only there, oppress his labouring soul,
Who walks, where honour'd men of ancient days
Have wrought with god-like arm the deeds of praise? 355
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or where with soften'd gaze
The old grey stones the plaided chief surveys,
Can guess the high resolve, the cherish'd pain 360
Of him whom passion rivets to the plain,
Where breath'd the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh,
And the last sun-beam fell on Bayard's eye,
Where bleeding Sydney from the cup retir'd,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" expir'd. 365

But now with other soul I stand alone
Sublime upon this far-surveying cone,
And watch from [P] pike to pike amid the sky
Small as a bird the chamois-chaser fly.
'Tis his with fearless step at large to roam 370
Thro' wastes, of Spirits wing'd the solemn home,
[Q] Thro' 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 Sound, and Motion sleep, 375
Where Silence still her death-like reign extends,
Save when the startling cliff unfrequent rends:
In the deep snow the mighty ruin drown'd,
Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound;
--To mark a planet's pomp and steady light 380
In the least star of scarce-appearing night,
And neighbouring moon, that coasts the vast profound,
Wheel pale and silent her diminish'd round,
While far and wide the icy summits blaze
Rejoicing in the glory of her rays; 385
The star of noon that glitters small and bright,
Shorn of his beams, insufferably white,
And flying fleet behind his orb to view
Th' interminable sea of sable blue.
--Of cloudless suns no more ye frost-built spires 390
Refract in rainbow hues the restless fires!
Ye dewy mists the arid rocks o'er-spread
Whose slippery face derides his deathful tread!

--To wet the peak's impracticable sides
He opens of his feet the sanguine tides, 395
Weak and more weak the issuing current eyes
Lapp'd by the panting tongue of thirsty skies.