Mont Blanc. Lines Written In The Vale Of Chamouni.

1.     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.     2.     Thus thou, Ravine of Arve - dark, deep Ravine -     Thou many-coloured, 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 stretched across the sweep     Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil     Robes some unsculptured 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!     3.     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 unfurled     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 tracts her there - how hideously     Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,     Ghastly, and scarred, 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 envelope 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 reconciled;     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.     4.     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 primaeval 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 piled: 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 destined path, or in the mangled soil     Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down     From yon remotest waste, have overthrown     The limits of the dead and living world,     Never to be reclaimed. 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.     5.     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?     July 23, 1816.     NOTES:     _15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817;         cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839.     _20 Thy 1824; The 1839.     _53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson ('B.V.').     _56 Spread 1824; Speed 1839.     _69 tracks her there 1824; watches her Boscombe manuscript.     _79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe manuscript.     _108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj. Rossetti          (cf. lines 102, 106).     _121 torrents']torrent's 1817, 1824, 1839.