“Chamouni” [poem]
CHAMOUNI
The wreathing clouds are fleeting fast,
1
Deep shade upon the hills they cast,
While through their openings ever show
Enormous pyramids of snow;
Scarce can you tell in middle air
If cloud or mountain rises there,
Yet may you mark the glittering light
That glances from the glaciered height;
And you may mark the shades that sever
The throne where winter sits for ever,
The avalancheʼs thunder rolling,
No summer heat his reign controlling;
The gloomy tyrant in his pride
Spreads his dominion far and wide,
Till, set with many an icy gem,
Rises his cliffy diadem. 2
Deep shade upon the hills they cast,
While through their openings ever show
Enormous pyramids of snow;
Scarce can you tell in middle air
System generated line number
5If cloud or mountain rises there,
Yet may you mark the glittering light
That glances from the glaciered height;
And you may mark the shades that sever
The throne where winter sits for ever,
System generated line number
10The avalancheʼs thunder rolling,
No summer heat his reign controlling;
The gloomy tyrant in his pride
Spreads his dominion far and wide,
Till, set with many an icy gem,
System generated line number
15Rises his cliffy diadem. 2
Above a steepy crag we wound
Where gloomy pines his forehead crowned;
And heard we, with a sullen swell,
The turbid Arve dash through the dell;
You might have thought it, moaning by,
Wail for the loss of liberty;
For high the rocks whose mighty screen
Confined the narrow pass between,
And many a mass of granite grey
Opposed the torrentʼs forceful way;
So headlong rushed the lightning tide,
No pass was there for aught beside;
And we high oʼer those cliffs so sheer
Must climb the mountain barrier,
Until unfolded to the eye
The fruitful fields of Chamouni. 3
Where gloomy pines his forehead crowned;
And heard we, with a sullen swell,
The turbid Arve dash through the dell;
System generated line number
20You might have thought it, moaning by,
Wail for the loss of liberty;
For high the rocks whose mighty screen
Confined the narrow pass between,
And many a mass of granite grey
System generated line number
25Opposed the torrentʼs forceful way;
So headlong rushed the lightning tide,
No pass was there for aught beside;
And we high oʼer those cliffs so sheer
Must climb the mountain barrier,
System generated line number
30Until unfolded to the eye
The fruitful fields of Chamouni. 3
It lay before us, as a child
Of beauty in the desert wild;
Full strange it seemed that thing so fair,
So fairy‐like, could harbour there;
For fields of bending corn there grew
Close to the glacierʼs wintry blue;
And saw we the same sun‐ray shine
On pasture gay and mountain pine,
Whose dark and spiry forests rose
Till mingled with eternal snows
That climbed into the clear blue sky
In peaked, impending majesty.
ʼTis passing strange that such a place
In all its native loveliness
Should, pent within those wilds so lone,
For many ages pass unknown—
Unknown save by a simple few a
Who their own valley only knew,
Nor dared the mountain ridge that bound
That lovely vale with terrors round;
That lived secluded from mankind,
Contented yet in heart and mind;
That lived within that world alone,
A world of beauty of their own. 4
And now Helvetiaʼs cliffy reign
Contains not in her Alpine chain,
In valley deep, on mountain high,
A race like those of Chamouni;
For they have loved, at dawn of day,
To trace the chamoisʼ fearful way,
Or on the toppling shelf of snow
With crags above and clouds below;
Or on the peak whose spiry head
Is beetling oʼer abysses dread,
Where place for foot, and grasp for hand,
Is all the hunter can command;
Or on the glacierʼs rigid wave
Where he may find a chasmy grave; 5
Returning with his spoils at even
Ere the red sun hath left the heaven.
Of beauty in the desert wild;
Full strange it seemed that thing so fair,
System generated line number
35So fairy‐like, could harbour there;
For fields of bending corn there grew
Close to the glacierʼs wintry blue;
And saw we the same sun‐ray shine
On pasture gay and mountain pine,
System generated line number
40Whose dark and spiry forests rose
Till mingled with eternal snows
That climbed into the clear blue sky
In peaked, impending majesty.
ʼTis passing strange that such a place
System generated line number
45In all its native loveliness
Should, pent within those wilds so lone,
For many ages pass unknown—
Unknown save by a simple few a
Who their own valley only knew,
System generated line number
50Nor dared the mountain ridge that bound
That lovely vale with terrors round;
That lived secluded from mankind,
Contented yet in heart and mind;
That lived within that world alone,
System generated line number
55A world of beauty of their own. 4
And now Helvetiaʼs cliffy reign
Contains not in her Alpine chain,
In valley deep, on mountain high,
A race like those of Chamouni;
System generated line number
60For they have loved, at dawn of day,
To trace the chamoisʼ fearful way,
Or on the toppling shelf of snow
With crags above and clouds below;
Or on the peak whose spiry head
System generated line number
65Is beetling oʼer abysses dread,
Where place for foot, and grasp for hand,
Is all the hunter can command;
Or on the glacierʼs rigid wave
Where he may find a chasmy grave; 5
System generated line number
70Returning with his spoils at even
Ere the red sun hath left the heaven.