Poems on Travel Part 3

They were the first by whom the deed was done, 5 And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight To that day's tragic feat of manly might, As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.

Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon Thou didst behold the planets lift and lower; 10 Saw'st, maybe, Joshua's pausing sun and moon, And the betokening sky when Caesar's power Approached its b.l.o.o.d.y end; yea, even that Noon When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.

T. HARDY.

NATURA MALIGNA

The Lady of the Hills with crimes untold Followed my feet, with azure eyes of prey; By glacier-brink she stood--by cataract-spray-- When mists were dire, or avalanche-echoes rolled.

At night she glimmered in the death-wind cold, 5 And if a footprint shone at break of day, My flesh would quail, but straight my soul would say: "Tis hers whose hand G.o.d's mightier hand doth hold.'

I trod her snow-bridge, for the moon was bright, Her icicle-arch across the sheer creva.s.se, 10 When lo, she stood!... G.o.d made her let me pa.s.s, Then felled the bridge!... Oh, there in sallow light There down the chasm, I saw her cruel, white, And all my wondrous days as in a gla.s.s.

T. WATTS-DUNTON.

NATURA BENIGNA

What power is this? what witchery wins my feet To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow, All silent as the emerald gulfs below, Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight beat?

What thrill of earth and heaven--most wild, most sweet-- 5 What answering pulse that all the senses know, Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet?

Mother, 'tis I reborn: I know thee well: That throb I know and all it prophesies, 10 O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies!

Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tell The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes!

T. WATTS-DUNTON.

THE SIMPLON Pa.s.s

----Brook and road Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pa.s.s, And with them did we journey several hours At a slow step. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, 5 The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent, at every turn, Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn, The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, 10 Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream, The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light-- 15 Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end. 20

W. WORDSWORTH.

OBERMANN

I

In front the awful Alpine track Crawls up its rocky stair; The autumn storm-winds drive the rack Close o'er it, in the air.

Behind are the abandoned baths 5 Mute in their meadows lone; The leaves are on the valley paths; The mists are on the Rhone--

The white mists rolling like a sea.

I hear the torrents roar. 10 --Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!

I feel thee near once more.

How often, where the slopes are green On Jaman, hast thou sate By some high chalet door, and seen 15 The summer day grow late,

And darkness steal o'er the wet gra.s.s With the pale crocus starred, And reach that glimmering sheet of gla.s.s Beneath the piny sward, 20

Lake Leman's waters, far below: And watched the rosy light Fade from the distant peaks of snow: And on the air of night

Heard accents of the eternal tongue 25 Through the pine branches play: Listened, and felt thyself grow young: Listened, and wept----Away!

Away the dreams that but deceive!

And thou, sad Guide, adieu! 30 I go; Fate drives me: but I leave Half of my life with you.

II

Glion?----Ah, twenty years, it cuts All meaning from a name!

White houses prank where once were huts!

Glion, but not the same,

And yet I know not. All unchanged 5 The turf, the pines, the sky!

The hills in their old order ranged.

The lake, with Chillon by!

And 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff And stony mounts the way, 10 Their crackling husk-heaps burn, as if I left them yesterday.

Across the valley, on that slope, The huts of Avant s.h.i.+ne-- Its pines under their branches ope 15 Ways for the tinkling kine.

Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare, Sweet heaps of fresh-cut gra.s.s, Invite to rest the traveller there Before he climb the pa.s.s-- 20

The gentian-flowered pa.s.s, its crown With yellow spires aflame, Whence drops the path to Alliere down And walls where Byron came.

Still in my soul the voice I heard 25 Of Obermann--away I turned; by some vague impulse stirred, Along the rocks of Naye

And Sonchaud's piny flanks I gaze And the blanched summit bare 30 Of Malatrait, to where in haze The Valais opens fair,

And the domed Velan with his snows Behind the upcrowding hills Doth all the heavenly opening close 35 Which the Rhone's murmur fills--

And glorious there, without a sound, Across the glimmering lake, High in the Valais depth profound, I saw the morning break. 40

M. ARNOLD.

THE TERRACE AT BERNE

Ten years!--and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high, The stream--and do I linger here?

The clouds are on the Oberland, 5 The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar,

And from the blue twin lakes it comes, Flows by the town, the church-yard fair, 10 And 'neath the garden-walk it hums, The house--and is my Marguerite there?

M. ARNOLD.