Fearful, beneath, the Water-spirits call, And the bridge vibrates, tottering to its fall.
- Heavy, and dull, and cloudy is the night;
No star supplies the comfort of its 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.
By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs,
Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes.
She hears, upon the mountain forest's brow,
The death-dog, howling loud and long, below;
On viewless fingers counts the valley-clock,
Followed by drowsy crow of midnight cock.
The dry leaves stir as with the serpent's walk,
And, far beneath, Banditti voices talk;
Behind her hill, the Moon, all crimson, rides,
And his red eyes the slinking Water hides.
-Vex'd by the darkness, from the piny gulf
Ascending, nearer howls the famish'd wolf,
"Red came the river down, and loud, and oft
The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd."
While through 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,
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 crags, that, beaten by the din,
Vibrate, as if a voice complain'd within ;
Bare steeps, where Desolation stalks, afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstayed;
By 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,
And crosses rear'd to Death on every side,
Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near,
And, bending, water'd with the human tear,
* The Catholic religion prevails here; these cells are, as is well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the Roman tombs, along the road side.
+ Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of snow and other accidents are very common along this dreadful road.
That faded "silent" from her upward eye,
Unmoved with each rude form of Danger nigh,
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,
Moveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale,
The beams of evening, slipping soft between,
Gently illuminate a sober scene;
Winding its dark-green wood and emerald glade,
The still vale lengthens underneath the shade;
While in soft gloom the scattering bowers recede,
Green dewy lights adorn the freshen'd mead,
On the low brown wood-huts delighted sleep
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 the admiring eye
Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
* The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and tow'rs, And antique castles seen through drizzling show'rs.
From such romantic dreams, my soul, awake! Lo! Fear looks silent down on Uri's lake, Where, by the unpathwayed margin, still and dread, 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 aërial pines ascend, Yet with his infants man undaunted creeps And hangs his small wood-cabin on the steeps. Where'er below amid the savage scene Peeps out a little speck of smiling green, A garden-plot the desert air perfumes, 'Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms; A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff, Threading the painful crag, surmounts the cliff. -Before those hermit doors, that never know The face of traveller passing to and fro, No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning toll'd the funeral bell;
Their watch dog ne'er his angry
Touch'd by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The grassy seat beneath their casement shade
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
The insuperable rocks and severing tide;
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.
'Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry,
Hovering o'er rugged wastes too bleak to rear
That common growth of earth, the foodful ear;
Where the green apple shrivels on the spray,
And pines the unripen'd pear in summer's kindliest ray;
Even here Content has fixed her smiling reign
With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often eyes;
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