Poets may render back in colours true Objects that their clear spirits brighten through; Delight-what are their feelings inexprest? Analogous to a beheld abyss, Stability in granite rocks descried, Eternity in Ocean's endless tide, These and such like analogies between Nature and man,-the world unseen and seen,These are heartfelt; and is not man to heaven Allied by such mute intimations given? And our humanities, are they not found Down to smooth serpent-flattery that charms The summer trance of loveliest grandest things Semblance of beatific vision brings. How all on earth is like a silver haze Of light-it disappears-what scenes amaze! The gently-moving forest trees appear The Alps, even magnified by distance, view, Approach the monuments of time that was Circuitous immensities, where broods of frozen waves by suns unwaken'd sleep, "Tis the sublime of desolation! far Vineyards on vineyards rising in due grades, "Le repos et le profond silence qui regnaient dans cette vaste étendue, agrandie encore par l'imagination, m'inspiraient une sorte de terreur ; il me semblait que j'avais survécu seul à l'univers, et que je voyais son cadavre étendu sous mes pieds."-Tentatives pour parvenir à la Cime de Mont Blanc. Euvres de SAUSSURE, tome iii., p. 478. The whole description of the setting sun, as beheld by the author from an immense rock on one side of Mont Blanc, and of the subsequent closing in of night, a simple narration of phenomena, is very sublime. There is a very fine passage, descriptive of the scenery of the North Cape, in Acerbi's Travels, that has some resemblance to the above description of Saussure-"There everything is solitary, everything is sterile, everything Sails through mid air a solitary cloud, Above the silent shadowy vale of death; War-ravaged lands and cities desolate, Uncultured plains, and wrecks of regal state, The spoiler man, his gewgaws spoil'd by time. sad and despondent. The shadowy forest no longer adorns the brow of the mountain. The singing of the birds, which enlivened even the woods of Lapland, is no longer heard in this scene of desolation. The ruggedness of the dark grey rock is not covered by a single shrub. The only music is the hoarse murmuring of the waves ever and anon renewing their assaults on the huge masses that oppose them. The northern sun creeping at midnight, at the distance of five diameters, along the horizon, and the immeasurable ocean in apparent contact with the skies, form the grand outlines in the sublime picture presented to the astonished spectator. The incessant cares and pursuits of anxious mortals are recollected as a dream; the various forms and energies of animated nature are forgotten; the earth is contemplated only in its elements, and as constituting a part of the solar system." Acerbi's Travels, vol. ii., page 111. Where wild goats leap from crag to crag on high, Turn we to lake-o'ershadowing mountains nigh, Or jagged or columnar, what a mass ! Frown others, lengthening in their liquid glass. Towering o'er the magnificent array Of clouds that stream along their sides mid-way, Peaks, that the spirit of light seems to subdue Far, far around, the Heaven-raised barriers, grand Lake, in the cataract her voice ye hear. |