A Little Child's Monument/In the Alps
Once more, once more, the heavenly heights environ,
Here in the land remembering Rousseau,
Thrilling with songs of Shelley and of Byron,
And lovelier songs of lives purer than snow!
Beautiful mother of the brave and free,
Mother of deeds that live eternally,
A beacon, like thy sunlit spires up yonder,
A clarion, like the unfurling of loud thunder
Among thine echoing ravines and rocks,
And turbulent elemental shocks,
Far-rolling banner, blazoned with fierce light,
Shaken in false faces of the hosts of night!
I deem it well awhile to linger here.
My weary heart was weakened with pale fear,
And loss of him who made the world so dear,
Low care, dull disappointment, and vain strife
With strangling sins, and problems of mad life:
My conquered soul lay open to despair,
Whose cold grey waters moaned unchallenged there.
For not alone my dearest hope lay slain,
And the few loved ones who are left me wane
Like fairy gold, but all around lie blent
In one dishonoured ruin, pale and rent,
Children with women, lately fair as day,
Now overmoaned by men who rave and pray
For rest beside them! And my country hounds
The oppressor on! she jeers at the death-wounds
Of human hearts! England, who freed the slave,
Now, for her base greed, thrusts him to his grave![1]
Alas! in her dear bosom want and crime
Horribly thrive, and lurk, waiting red harvest-time!
It was before we knew him that I came;
And now the glory seems no more the same.
I longed to lead his childish footsteps here,
And watch the wonder in his eyes appear,
And welcome his glad accents ringing clear.
I only hear low wind in the ravine,
A voice of one disconsolate who may lean
Among dark pines, lamenting what hath been!
Voice of mad Time, who blindly brings to birth,
And blindly ruins all her children's mirth,
And crooning idly, sheds their petals upon earth!
O desolate mother of mortals, who bewailest
All thy sweet sons torn from thee, nor availest
Aught to appease the hunger of dim Death,
Who feedeth on thy cherished children's breath!
Is it indeed as Sense and Seeming say,
Or hath yon faint far Hope firmer foothold than they;
And may we climb from wildering mist to undeluding day?
The shepherd calling to his fellows
In sparry hollows of the crags,
Many a mountain demon bellows
Among wild, caverned peaks and jags.
Flowers in the pastoral valley
Ever with soft breezes dally,
Mellow bells of mild-eyed kine,
While they saunter, and recline,
Soothe the sense; on waters green
A white-winged shallop sails serene.
In a lofty upland bower
Of foliage, whose verdures dower
Far-off bloom of lake and hill
With lovelier beauty, musing still,
'Neath young leaves I see fair roses
Glowing over violet water,
Whose calm iris-gleam reposes,
Faintly clouded, Heaven's daughter,
Leman's poet-haunted water!
A far village in the heat
Resting at the mountain's feet.
Beyond, how solemnly!
Among the cliffs of Meillerie,
Opal shafts of misty shining
Stream athwart the deep ravine,
Where I never cease divining
Tall rude phantom forms that lean
In reverie
Over one another's shoulder,
Solemn guardians of the gorge,
Till a fleecy cloudlet fold her
Wings awhile upon the verge,
A well-beloved guest:
In the gloom of mountain splendour,
In dusk oriental gold
Of their rich raiment, oh, how tender
Seemed the silver-pinioned rover
From a far celestial fold!
Rude earth spirits may but love her,
Nor ever dare to hold
From her rest!
And a smile stole over furrowed
Faces of old earthworn mountain;
To each and all who so had sorrowed
The dewy cloud wits youth's own fountain
Of happiness divine.
Lo! now the loftier heights all hoary
Gleam with white wings of Angel presence,
So fledged with plumes we scarce may know
Sheeny cloud from downy snow,
Until I marvel if, in the glory
Of yon serene ethereal pleasance,
Mine angel, mine!
Nestle softly with the rest;
If a moment he reposes
On the aerial mount of Roses!
Or where from Jungfrau's radiant breast
Roll white thunderous avalanches,
And the dim ravine swift blanches
With a ghostly snow
Fair, far below!
So white-winged Consolation glides
Into a heart where Death abides …
… Is it a loud acclaim of deep immortal voices,
When all the effulgent host of warriors rejoices,
And the ever-burning fire
Of holy love leaps higher,
For wings of seraphs rushing from their light on high,
Into earth's deadly shadow, to help mortality? …
… Or near Eigher's pyramid
May my lovely child lie hid,
With the pulsing evening star,
In realms of roses fair and far?
And tho' I come no more as erst I came,
Fleet-foot as wind, with youthful eyes aflame,
Eager to scale thy snows, and gladly dare,
Free as a fawn, heart-whole as mountain air,
But halting with dull weight of years and pain,
Shame and remorse, and little doubtful gain;
Surely 'tis well once more awhile to be
Here in the morning land of holiest Liberty!
Here in the presence-chamber of high Nature,
Here at the feet of her immortal stature,
Gazing within her calm supernal eyes,
My soul, assoiled from earth's insanities,
Casts the low corse of folly, lust, and death,
And loosed from suffocation, draws free breath,
Inhaling draughts of powers divine, that are
Eternal strength in spirit, earth, and star;
Learneth endurance from stern, silent mountains,
And youthful hope from the everflowing fountains,
Indomitable ardour by strong-sounding floods,
Deep contemplation in dim-dreaming woods,
Lofty aspiring, with firm faith,
From all yon soaring hierarchy saith,
And the sublime still host of worlds that travelleth;
Untiring battle with the foe within,
Until, through Christ, I conquer all my sin,
And sleepless war upon His enemies without,
Till all rebels bow willing thralls to Love, whom they so flout.
Yea, thou, my darling, gleaming out of God
A moment o'er the wintry path I trod,
Tellest, we toil, we climb, we faint, we fall;
Yet ever rise, until we rest, Love reigning all in all!
Yea, now and evermore Love reigneth over all.
- ↑ Written at the time of the Bulgarian massacres.