 | The Poems of Robert Bloomfield |  |
64
At ease to mark a scene so fair,
And treat their steeds with mountain air,
Some rode apart, or led before,
Rock after rock the wheels upbore;
The careful driver slowly sped,
To many a bough we duck'd the head,
And heard the wild inviting calls
Of summer's tinkling waterfalls,
In wooded glens below; and still,
At every step the sister hill,
Blorenge, grew greater; half unseen
At times from out our bowers of green,
That telescopic landscapes made,
From the arch'd windows of its shade;
For woodland tracts begirt us round;
The vale beyond was fairy ground,
That verse can never paint. Above
Gleam'd, (something like the mount of Jove,
But how much, let the learned say,
Who take Olympus in their way)
Gleam'd the fair, sunny, cloudless peak
That simple strangers ever seek.
And are they simple? Hang the dunce
Who would not doff his cap at once
In ecstasy, when, bold and new,
Bursts on his sight a mountain-view.
And treat their steeds with mountain air,
Some rode apart, or led before,
Rock after rock the wheels upbore;
The careful driver slowly sped,
To many a bough we duck'd the head,
And heard the wild inviting calls
Of summer's tinkling waterfalls,
In wooded glens below; and still,
At every step the sister hill,
Blorenge, grew greater; half unseen
At times from out our bowers of green,
That telescopic landscapes made,
From the arch'd windows of its shade;
For woodland tracts begirt us round;
The vale beyond was fairy ground,
That verse can never paint. Above
Gleam'd, (something like the mount of Jove,
65
Who take Olympus in their way)
Gleam'd the fair, sunny, cloudless peak
That simple strangers ever seek.
And are they simple? Hang the dunce
Who would not doff his cap at once
In ecstasy, when, bold and new,
Bursts on his sight a mountain-view.
Though vast the prospect here became,
Intensely as the love of fame
Glow'd the strong hope, that strange desire,
That deathless wish of climbing higher,
Where heather clothes his graceful sides,
Which many a scatter'd rock divides,
Bleach'd by more years than hist'ry knows,
Moved by no power but melting snows,
Or gushing springs, that wash away
Th' embedded earth that forms their stay.
The heart distends, the whole frame feels,
Where, inaccessible to wheels,
The utmost storm-worn summit spreads
Its rocks grotesque, its downy beds;
Here no false feeling, sense belies,
Man lifts the weary foot, and sighs;
Laughter is dumb; hilarity
Forsakes at once th' astonish'd eye;
E'en the closed lip, half useless grown,
Drops but a word, “Look down; look down.”
Intensely as the love of fame
Glow'd the strong hope, that strange desire,
That deathless wish of climbing higher,
Where heather clothes his graceful sides,
Which many a scatter'd rock divides,
Bleach'd by more years than hist'ry knows,
Moved by no power but melting snows,
Or gushing springs, that wash away
Th' embedded earth that forms their stay.
66
Where, inaccessible to wheels,
The utmost storm-worn summit spreads
Its rocks grotesque, its downy beds;
Here no false feeling, sense belies,
Man lifts the weary foot, and sighs;
Laughter is dumb; hilarity
Forsakes at once th' astonish'd eye;
E'en the closed lip, half useless grown,
Drops but a word, “Look down; look down.”
| The Poems of Robert Bloomfield | |