 | Romance and revery |  |
108
ON THE RIGI.
How beauty in tones of alien terror speaks
While thus enthralled by wonderment we stand,—
While Nature throngs on us these pale wild peaks,
Cloud-sundering, of her Bernese Oberland!
While thus enthralled by wonderment we stand,—
While Nature throngs on us these pale wild peaks,
Cloud-sundering, of her Bernese Oberland!
Nay, half with angry rock she seems to plan,
And half with polar snow she seems to blanch,
The lairs of haughty gods whose heed for man
Lives but in glacier and in avalanche!
And half with polar snow she seems to blanch,
The lairs of haughty gods whose heed for man
Lives but in glacier and in avalanche!
And yet how sweet to think that southward lies,
Past this bleak mood of scorn, could we but see,
With bounteous olive-trees and tender skies,
The sunny penitence of her Italy!
Past this bleak mood of scorn, could we but see,
With bounteous olive-trees and tender skies,
The sunny penitence of her Italy!
Switzerland, 1884.
| Romance and revery | |