I



The everlasting universe of things



Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,



Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—



Now lending splendour, where from secret springs



The source of human thought its tribute brings



Of waters—with a sound but half its own,



Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,



In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,



Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,



Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river



Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.







II



Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—



Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale,



Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail



Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,



Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down



From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,



Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame



Of lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie,



Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,



Children of elder time, in whose devotion



The chainless winds still come and ever came



To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging



To hear—an old and solemn harmony;



Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep



Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil



Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep



Which when the voices of the desert fail



Wraps all in its own deep eternity;



Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion,



A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;



Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,



Thou art the path of that unresting sound—



Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee



I seem as in a trance sublime and strange



To muse on my own separate fantasy,



My own, my human mind, which passively



Now renders and receives fast influencings,



Holding an unremitting interchange



With the clear universe of things around;



One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings



Now float above thy darkness, and now rest



Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,



In the still cave of the witch Poesy,



Seeking among the shadows that pass by



Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,



Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast



From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!







III



Some say that gleams of a remoter world



Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber,



And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber



Of those who wake and live.—I look on high;



Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd



The veil of life and death? or do I lie



In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep



Spread far around and inaccessibly



Its circles? For the very spirit fails,



Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep



That vanishes among the viewless gales!



Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,



Mont Blanc appears—still, snowy, and serene;



Its subject mountains their unearthly forms



Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between



Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,



Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread



And wind among the accumulated steeps;



A desert peopled by the storms alone,



Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone,



And the wolf tracks her there—how hideously



Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high,



Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.—Is this the scene



Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young



Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea



Of fire envelop once this silent snow?



None can reply—all seems eternal now.



The wilderness has a mysterious tongue



Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,



So solemn, so serene, that man may be,



But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd;



Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal



Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood



By all, but which the wise, and great, and good



Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.







IV



The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,



Ocean, and all the living things that dwell



Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,



Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,



The torpor of the year when feeble dreams



Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep



Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound



With which from that detested trance they leap;



The works and ways of man, their death and birth,



And that of him and all that his may be;



All things that move and breathe with toil and sound



Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.



Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,



Remote, serene, and inaccessible:



And this, the naked countenance of earth,



On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains



Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep



Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,



Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice



Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power



Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,



A city of death, distinct with many a tower



And wall impregnable of beaming ice.



Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin



Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky



Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing



Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil



Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down



From yon remotest waste, have overthrown



The limits of the dead and living world,



Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place



Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;



Their food and their retreat for ever gone,



So much of life and joy is lost. The race



Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling



Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,



And their place is not known. Below, vast caves



Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,



Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling



Meet in the vale, and one majestic River,



The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever



Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,



Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.







V



Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,



The still and solemn power of many sights,



And many sounds, and much of life and death.



In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,



In the lone glare of day, the snows descend



Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,



Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,



Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend



Silently there, and heap the snow with breath



Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home



The voiceless lightning in these solitudes



Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods



Over the snow. The secret Strength of things



Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome



Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!



And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,



If to the human mind's imaginings



Silence and solitude were vacancy?





