Yet still in
me with those soft luxuries
Mixed something
of stern mood, an underthirst
Of vigour seldom
utterly allayed:
And from that
source how different a sadness
560
Would issue,
let one incident make known.
When from the
Vallais we had turned, and clomb
Along the Simplon's
steep and rugged road,
Following a
band of muleteers, we reached
A halting-place,
where all together took
Their noon-tide
meal. Hastily rose our guide,
Leaving us at
the board; awhile we lingered,
Then paced the
beaten downward way that led
Right to a rough
stream's edge, and there broke off;
The only track
now visible was one
570
That from the
torrent's further brink held forth
Conspicuous
invitation to ascend
A lofty mountain.
After brief delay
Crossing the
unbridged stream, that road we took,
And clomb with
eagerness, till anxious fears
Intruded, for
we failed to overtake
Our comrades
gone before. By fortunate chance,
While every
moment added doubt to doubt,
A peasant met
us, from whose mouth we learned
That to the
spot which had perplexed us first
580
We must descend,
and there should find the road,
Which in the
stony channel of the stream
Lay a few steps,
and then along its banks;
And, that our
future course, all plain to sight,
Was downwards,
with the current of that stream.
Loth to believe
what we so grieved to hear,
For still we
had hopes that pointed to the clouds,
We questioned
him again, and yet again;
But every word
that from the peasant's lips
Came in reply,
translated by our feelings,
590
Ended in this,--'that
we had crossed the Alps'.
Imagination--here
the Power so called
Through sad
incompetence of human speech,
That awful Power
rose from the mind's abyss
Like an unfathered
vapour that enwraps,
At once, some
lonely traveller. I was lost;
Halted without
an effort to break through;
But to my conscious
soul I now can say--
"I recognise
thy glory:" in such strength
Of usurpation,
when the light of sense
600
Goes out, but
with a flash that has revealed
The invisible
world, doth greatness make abode,
There harbours;
whether we be young or old,
Our destiny,
our being's heart and home,
Is with infinitude,
and only there;
With hope it
is, hope that can never die,
Effort, and
expectation, and desire,
And something
evermore about to be.
Under such banners
militant, the soul
Seeks for no
trophies, struggles for no spoils
610
That may attest
her prowess, blest in thoughts
That are their
own perfection and reward,
Strong in herself
and in beatitude
That hides her,
like the mighty flood of Nile
Poured from
his fount of Abyssinian clouds
To fertilise
the whole Egyptian plain.
The
melancholy slackening that ensued
Upon those tidings
by the peasant given
Was soon dislodged.
Downwards we hurried fast,
And, with the
half-shaped road which we had missed,
620
Entered a narrow
chasm. The brook and road
Were fellow-travellers
in this gloomy strait,
And with them
did we journey several hours
At a slow pace.
The immeasurable height
[linking these images]
Of woods decaying,
never to be decayed,
The stationary
blasts of waterfalls,
And in the narrow
rent at every turn
Winds thwarting
winds, bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents
shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that
muttered close upon our ears,
630
Black drizzling
crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice
were in them, the sick sight
And giddy prospect
of the raving stream,
The unfettered
clouds and region of the Heavens,
Tumult and peace,
the darkness and the light--
Were all like
workings of one mind, the features
Of the same
face, blossoms upon one tree;
Characters of
the great Apocalypse,
The types and
symbols of Eternity,
Of first, and
last, and midst, and without end.
640
That
night our lodging was a house that stood
Alone within
the valley, at a point
Where, tumbling
from aloft, a torrent swelled
The rapid stream
whose margin we had trod;
A dreary mansion,
large beyond all need,
With high and
spacious rooms, deafened and stunned
By noise of
waters, making innocent sleep
Lie melancholy
among weary bones.