 | Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy |  |
136
THE JUDGMENT PICTURE AT ADELBODEN
In that high vale where winter stays too long
Kept by the hills' encircling rampart wall,
Mist-hidden ever moaned the waterfall;
No cowbell chimed, I heard no sweet bird's song:
From mountains wreathed with storm, a ghastly throng
Into a boiling caldron seemed to fall,
And clouds, like souls in pain that could not call,
Writhed in and out the darkened pines among.
Kept by the hills' encircling rampart wall,
Mist-hidden ever moaned the waterfall;
No cowbell chimed, I heard no sweet bird's song:
From mountains wreathed with storm, a ghastly throng
Into a boiling caldron seemed to fall,
And clouds, like souls in pain that could not call,
Writhed in and out the darkened pines among.
I could not wonder by the church's door,
Beneath the great age-blasted sycamore,
Man should have set the terrible Day of Doom,—
For how can hearts in utter sunlessness
Believe a fuller light will heal and bless,
And Love shall shine beyond the Judgment gloom?
Beneath the great age-blasted sycamore,
Man should have set the terrible Day of Doom,—
For how can hearts in utter sunlessness
Believe a fuller light will heal and bless,
And Love shall shine beyond the Judgment gloom?
| Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy | |