Poems (Wordsworth, 1815)/Volume 1/Extracts from Descriptive Sketches
III.
EXTRACTS
FROM
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR IN THE ALPS.
(Published in 1793.)
PLEASURES OF THE PEDESTRIAN.
No sad vacuities his heart annoy;—
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale;
He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale;
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread;
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upward he looks—"and calls it luxury;"
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend,
In every babbling brook he finds a friend,
While chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed
By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the Sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like [1]Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest ray
To light him shaken by his viewless way.
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal,
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there.
* * * * * * * *
I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear?
That breathed a death-like peace these woods around;
— — — — — — — — — —
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms,
And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubled heads,
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads.
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start the astonished shades at female eyes.
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
And swells the groaning torrent with his tears.
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock,
By [2]angels planted on the aereal rock.
The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of [3]Life and Death.
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous, through her old woods' trackless bounds,
[4]Vallombre, mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.
More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como bosomed deep in chesnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain,
To ringing team unknown and grating wain,
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or from the bending rocks obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling;
Wild round the steeps the little pathway twines,
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades,
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er the pictured mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills, with tortoise foot, they creep.
Here half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon; half hides itself in shade.
From the dark sylvan roofs the restless spire
Inconstant glancing, mounts like springing fire.
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along th' illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar.
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.
How bless'd, delicious scene! the eye that greets
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Th' unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales;
The never-ending waters of thy vales;
The cots, those dim religious groves embower,
Or, under rocks that from the water tower
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore,
Each with his household boat beside the door,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic droop,
Bright'ning the gloom where thick the forests stoop;
Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky,
Thy towns, like swallows' nests that cleave on high;
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descry'd
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods,
While Evening's solemn bird melodious weeps,
Heard, by star-spotted bays, beneath the steeps;
Thy lake, mid smoking woods, that blue and grey
Gleams, streaked or dappled, hid from morning's ray
Slow travelling down the western hills, to fold
Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold;
From thickly-glittering spires the matin bell
Calling the woodman from his desert cell,
A summons to the sound of oars, that pass,
Spotting the steaming deeps, to early mass;
Slow swells the service o'er the water born,
While fill each pause the ringing woods of morn.
* * * * * * * *
Now, passing Urseren's open vale serene,
Her quiet streams, and hills of downy green,
Plunge with the Russ embrowned 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 complained within;
Bare steeps, where Desolation stalks afraid,
Unstedfast, by a blasted yew upstayed;
By [5]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 [6]crosses reared to Death on every side,
Which with cold kiss Devotion planted near,
And bending water'd with the human tear;
That faded "silent" from her upward eye,
Unmoved with each rude form of Danger nigh,
Fixed 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 the expiring gale,
Moveless o'er-hang the deep secluded vale,
The beams of evening, slipping soft between,
Light up of tranquil joy 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 freshened mead,
On the low [7]brown wood-huts delighted sleep
Along the brightened 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,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through drizzling showers.
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 beach;
More high, to where creation seems to end,
Shade above shade the desert pines ascend.
Yet, with his infants, man undaunted creeps
And hangs his small wood-hut upon the steeps,
Where'er, below, amid the savage scene
Peeps out a little speck of smiling green.
A garden-plot the mountain 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 tolled the funeral bell;
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes,
Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes;
The grassy seat beneath their casement shade
The pilgrim's wistful eye hath never stayed.
—There, did the iron Genius not disdain
The gentle Power that haunts the myrtle plain,
There might the love-sick Maiden sit, and chide
Th' 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,
There hang in fear, when growls the frozen stream,
To guide his dangerous tread, the taper's gleam.
Mid stormy vapours ever driving by,
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry;
Where hardly given the hopeless waste to cheer,
Denied the bread of life the foodful ear,
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray,
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray;
Ev'n 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:
Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine,
Strange "weeds" and alpine plants her helm entwine,
And wildly-pausing oft she hangs aghast,
While thrills the "Spartan fife" between the blast.
* * * * * * * *
'Tis storm; and, hid in mist from hour to hour,
All day the floods a deepening murmur pour;
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight:
Dark is the region as with coming night;
But what a sudden burst of overpowering light!
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form;
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline;
Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold,
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold;
Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun
The west that burns like one dilated sun,
Where in a mighty crucible expire
The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire.
* * * * * * * *
—And sure there is a secret Power that reigns
Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes,
Nought[8] but the herds that pasturing upward creep,
Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep,
Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high
Suspended, mid the quiet of the sky.
How still! no irreligious sound or sight
Rouzes the soul from her severe delight.
An idle voice the sabbath region fills
Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods steady sugh[9];
The solitary heifer's deepen'd low;
Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow;
Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy
Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy.
* * * * * * * *
When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas,
Comes on, to whisper hope, the vernal breeze,
When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear,
And emerald isles to spot the heights appear,
When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill,
And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
When fragrant scents beneath th' enchanted tread
Spring up, his choicest wealth around him spread,
The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale,
To silence leaving the deserted vale,
Mounts, where the verdure leads, from stage to stage,
And pastures on, as in the Patriarch's age:
O'er lofty heights serene and still they go,
And hear the rattling thunder far below.
They cross the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed,
Rocked on the dizzy larch's narrow tread;
Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterr'd,
That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd.
—I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps,
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws,
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more blest in times of yore;
Then Summer lengthened out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flowed the happy land.
Continual fountains welling cheered the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled
Usurpign where the fairest herbage smiled;
Nor Hunger forced the herds from pastures bare
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bade those herds demand
Three mites a day the pail and welcome hand.
But human vices have provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Thus does the father to his sons relate,
On the lone mountain top, their changed estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows,
That hut which from the hills his eyes employs
So oft, the central point of all his joys,
Where safely guarded by the woods behind
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind;
Hears Winter, calling all his Terrors round,
Rush down the living rocks with whirlwind sound.
Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity to deck
With one bright bell a favourite heifer's neck:
Content, upon some simple annual feast,
(Remembered half the year, and hoped the rest,)
If dairy produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers consecrate the board.
* * * * * * * *
Gay lark of hope thy silent song resume!
Fair smiling lights the purpled hills illume!
Soft gales and dews of life's delicious morn,
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart return!
Soon flies the little joy to man allowed,
And grief before him travels like a cloud:
For come Diseases on, and Penury's rage,
Labour, and Care, and Pain, and dismal Age,
'Till, Hope-deserted, long in vain his breath
Implores the dreadful untried sleep of Death.
—Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine
Between interminable tracts of pine,
A Temple stands; which holds an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls:
Pale, dreadful faces round the Shrine appear,
Abortive Joy, and Hope that works in fear;
While strives a secret Power to hush the crowd,
Pain's wild rebellious burst proclaims her rights aloud.
Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain
That views undimmed Ensiedlen's[10] wretched fane.
Mid muttering prayers all sounds of torment meet,
Dire clap of hands, distracted chafe of feet;
While loud and dull ascends the weeping cry,
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die.
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope—Oh, pass and leave it there.
- ↑ The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or cheerful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.
- ↑ Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.
- ↑ Names of Rivers at the Chartreuse.
- ↑ Name of one of the vallies of the Chartreuse.
- ↑ The Catholic religion prevails here: these cells are, as is well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like Roman tombs, along the road side.
- ↑ Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of snow and other accidents, very common along this dreadful road.
- ↑ The houses in the more retired Swiss vallies are all built of wood.
- ↑ This picture is from the middle region of the Alps.
- ↑ Sugh, a scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the trees.
- ↑ This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.