“Andernacht” [prose]
What is it that makes the very heart leap wi‐
thin you, at the sight of a hills blue outline,
that so aetheriallizes the soul, and ennobles the
spirit, that so raises you from the earth, and
from aught of the earth, a Is it their apparent
proximity to the blue heavens inaccessible–
ness, is it the humbling sense of your own
littleness, or the immoveable, unchangeable mag
nificence, of that which has seen the begin
ning of the world, and will see its end, or is
it that the thoughts range insensibly, from
 
b
the things created, to him who created them
I know not. * * *. How it thrilled
through me, when first, far away, across
 
c
the lake like swell. d of the deep waters of that
wondrous river. e rose the cloudy outline,
 
f
of the blue mountains, g Long time hath
past over me, since I saw the swell of a
blue hill, I have longed for them,— I
 
h
have yearned for them as an exile yearns for
his native land, and I am with them.
We left Cologne on a misty summer mor–
ning, its many turreted spires rising colos–
sally, but grey and faint amid the wreath–
ing columns of mist, which smoked up
ward from the course of the broad Rhine.
There was the huge cathedral, dark with
the confused richness of its own fretwork,
and the remains of its unfinished, but
magnificent tower, 1 showing ruinlike, be–
side it, i There were the red sails and min
gled masts of the innumerable shipping, with
out one sail swelling, or a flag bending, with
 
j
the morning breeze, k There was that peace–
ful and lovely lassitude over everything, that
sleep of the earth, and the air, and the sky, that
charms the mind into a correspondent fas–
cination of stillness, the very thoughts seem
sleeping.—
We went on, we past Bonn, and Godes–
berg, and Drachenfels 2 and sunset was
sorrowing over hill and valley, when
the gloomy and venerable towers of
Andernacht beetled over us.
I love to look upon the crags that Cæsar
 
l
has scaled, and upon the towers that his
legions have founded. These are now
as they were then, looking up to the bro–
ad blue heaven, these are in ruins. 3 Yet,
they are mighty in their ruin, and majes–
tic in their decay, but their Lords are depar
ted and forgotten, as the waves that once lashed their
foundations. Other snows have melted, and the
Rhine yet rolls onward unbroken, but those wav–
es are lost in the ocean for ever m