HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE

VALE OF CHAMOUNY.

[Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources at the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."]

HAST thou a charm to stay the Morning Star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly! but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing-there

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale !
Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky or when they sink :
Companion of the Morning Star at dawn,
Thyself earth's ROSY STAR, and of the dawn
Co-herald: wake, oh, wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks For ever shatter'd and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,

Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded, (and the silence came,)

Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
God! let the torrents, like a Shout of Nations
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the Mountain Storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breastThou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, a while bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,

Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, oh, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

S. T. COLERIDGE, 1772-1834.

OH, HEAVEN IS NEARER.

OH, heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with a trembling dread
At the misty future that stretches on

From the quiet home of the dead.
'Tis no lone isle in a boundless main,
No brilliant but distant shore,

Where the lovely ones who are call'd away
Must go to return no more.

No! heaven is near us, the mighty veil
Of mortality blinds the eye,

That we cannot see the angel bands

On the shores of eternity:

Yet oft in the hours of holy thought,

To the thirsting soul is given

That power to pierce through the mists of sense To the beauteous scenes of heaven.

Then very near seems its pearly gates,
And sweetly its harpings fall,

Till the soul is restless to soar away
And longs for the angel call.

I know when the silver cord is loosed,
When the veil is rent away,

Not long and dark shall the passage be
To the realms of endless day.

The eye that shuts in a dying hour

Shall open the next in bliss ;

The welcome shall sound in the heavenly world
Ere the farewell is hush'd in this.

We pass from the clasp of mourning friends
To the arms of the loved or lost,

And those dear faces shall greet us then

Which on earth we have cherish'd most.

ANONYMOUS.