ARVE

II  discsion of the river begins in section two of the poem.
Thus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine--
Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
15 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

                    I but already in section one the metaphor of a river is introduced.
                    The everlasting universe of things
                    Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, <---mind = water
                    Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
                    Now lending splendour, where from secret springs the springs of the mountain and of the mind.
                    5 The source of human thought its tribute brings    imagination is our spring.
                    Of waters--
 


later in section four, the destruction by the mountain avalanches & floods uses water metaphors.
                                        Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power
                                        Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
                                        105  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
                                        110  Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil
                                        Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down
                                        From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
                                        The limits of the dead and living world,
                                        Never to be reclaim'd.

If the metaphor is mind = water, then what does this say about the power of the imagination?  !

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