To Mont Blanc.

Blanc! shall we say yon sun to thee comes down;
Or goest thou up to him, formed to aspire
To his red orb that stains thy snows with fire,
And burns a thousand clouds to glory for thy crown?
Day’s lingering blush upon thy brow still shed
Shall cool to twilight’s keen blue effuence,
Ere scaling now the glaciers’ terrible fence
Round thy congealèd loins, yon eagle reach thy head.
Each element of nature truest shines
Round thee. The white unsteady clouds that stream
From off thy forehead most ethereal seem,
And the pale moon that high glazes thy savage pines.
Thine, waters great and small of glassiest wave:
From out thy side the frozen-bearded spring
Looks with clear eye, like hermit’s, glittering,
Touched by the moon’s cold wand; below pure torrents rave.
And who shall dare thy awful skirts to tread,
When in the tempest-robe thy form retires,
Wrought of dark thunder and embroidered fires?
And the sharp stars of night are keenest o’er thy head.

Oh, not in vain has God built up thy height,
Majestic parent of abstracted forms,
Shaped from man’s spirit by thy hurrying storms,
Dread steeps, and silent snows, and clearnesses of light.
Lives there the man durst bear unto thy crown
Of chastest cold, where never sun that shone
Hurt the blue chair of Winter’s icy throne,
Feelings and thoughts impure, as in the thick gross town?
The snows of Innocence thy forehead blanch;
Black Horror nods upon thy piney steep;
And Danger, like a giant half asleep,
And falling, leans upon thy falling avalanche.
Scarce has yon eagle reached thy summit hoar,
Heaven-towering Blanc, with upward steady wing!—
I leave thy presence; but, in wandering,
I’ll see thee oft afar o’er sea and circling shore.